


Until It's True

by Netterz



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Debbie Had Reasons, Debbie loves Lou, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Heist Wives, Hurt/Comfort, Lou and Debbie are Meant for Eachother, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:26:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netterz/pseuds/Netterz
Summary: Lying comes naturally.Debbie Ocean has only come by two things honestly her whole life. Lying is one of them.The other is Lou Miller....she'll use $150 million in diamonds to say it because she doesn’t want to lie to Lou about anything else, ever again, even if she has to keep lying about this for the rest of their lives.





	1. Lying is in Her Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many headcanons about these two. 
> 
> Featured in this story: Debbie did things for reasons--real, legitimate, potentially soft reasons.
> 
> So much love to everyone in this fandom who leaves comments and kudos--you make the world go round!

Don’t believe anybody who tries to tell you that the secret is a grain of truth—they’re either lying or they’re an amateur. 

The _real_ secret is to let it wrap around you—down your spine, between your thighs, seeping into your bloodstream until it’s a part of the truth of who _you_ are… because then it stops being a lie. 

 _Lying_ is easy. 

Lying is the thing that tied her dysfunctional family and would-rather-forget-about childhood to the woman she is. There’s a five-inch scar running the length of her left shoulder blade to show for it. She’d been the only one small enough to climb up and into the ventilation shaft for their father, and nobody said “no” to Frank Ocean, not even his ten-year-old daughter. But, nobody stopped to consider how much weight it would be able to hold over an extended period of time and she went crashing through the ceiling and very nearly got left behind in the resulting mad-dash for an emergency escape.

Lying comes naturally.

Debbie Ocean has only come by two things honestly her whole life. Lying is one of them.

The other is Lou Miller. But even that isn’t honest anymore, not on Debbie’s end.  

Five years, eight months, and twelve days, give or take the four she spent in the infirmary and the one she spent in her parole interviews, is a long time. But part of her is glad that she had that long. She needed it to plan her apology to Lou. An apology for all of the things Lou thinks she knows, all of the things Lou has no idea Debbie hasn’t told her, all of the things that hurt Lou because Debbie doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to make her understand because she isn’t sure she understands herself.

All she knows is that she’s sorry and she’ll use $150 million in diamonds to say it because she doesn’t want to lie to Lou about anything else, ever again, even if she has to keep lying about _this_ for the rest of their lives. 

 

***

 

“What? He told you the truth?"  
“Only way to con a con, right?”

 Debbie’s rehearsed the story in her head a thousand times over. She knows every detail, all the right places to pause for a breath, has all the answers to any question somebody might come up with. She hasn’t actually  _told_  it many times, though, and Tammy's mom-voice is practiced. 

“You know I don’t buy that load of crap, right?” Tammy pairs the voice with her best mom-stare.

“Which part?” Debbie deadpans, reaching under the chair she’s sitting on to retrieve her black block-heel ankle boots. “Because I can assure you that I definitely spent the last five years in prison.”

"The rough patch,” Tammy sighs, pulling off her pumps as Debbie zips up her boots. “You two were thick as thieves until two weeks before you were arrested.”

“Really Tam-Tam?” Debbie deflects, standing and crossing the bathroom-turned-planning-centre to straighten her hair in the mirror, quirking an eyebrow at Tammy in the reflection. “ _Thick as thieves_?”

“Literally,” Tammy purses her lips. “Then nothing--radio silence until it was Lou calling to tell me you'd been sentenced."

"What are you asking, Tam-Tam?" Debbie pivots on her heels, leaning a hip against the edge of the sink, and facing Tammy where she sits on the closed toilet. 

"I don't know, Debbie," Tammy waves her hands as if she can pull what she's looking for out of thin air if she's just frantic enough. "Maybe what actually happened?"

"You know what happened." Debbie keeps her voice level and crosses her arms over her chest.

"No, I know what you're telling me." Tammy’s eyes narrow, Debbie pushes off from the sink and turns to open the bathroom door. 

"Gotta go," she pauses in the door frame. "Don't forget to update the seating chart." It's thrown over her shoulder and she's gone, heels clicking down the hallway and out the backdoor of the warehouse.

 

***

 

Debbie stands on the beach, shoves her hands into the pockets of her coat, and stares out at the horizon line without actually seeing it.

She's waiting. Already knows what's going on inside, it's just a question of timing that's up in the air. It makes her uneasy--not being able to calculate this one down to the minute, to the detail. Her conversation with Tammy shook her resolve more than she lets on. 

She doesn't jump when the warehouse door slams open, then slams closed again, and the staccato of block heels against pavement approaches from behind.

"Hey," Lou's voice is low, even for her. "We need to talk." Lou strides across the sand. "You better tell me this is not what I think it is."

Debbie reigns in her features before turning to face her. “What?”

Lou scoffs at the question. "Claude Becker." The name is battery acid falling from her lips as she steps up close enough that Debbie can feel her harsh exhales against her cheek, has to clench her hands into fists in her pocket to stop herself from reaching up to brush Lou’s shaggy bangs away from her eyes.

"I didn't do that," Despite everything else, Debbie can't help the smirk; it only sends Lou into a faster spiral. 

“I’m not a croupier, okay?” Lou is dangerously close to losing her head. Debbie can see it in the clench of her jaw. “Or a tourist with a bucket of quarters. Don’t con me. You do not run a  _job_  in a job."

Debbie almost cracks because Lou’s voice has gone from angry, to hurt, and back to angry in the span of three sentences but Debbie knows that more than anything Lou just wants to understand—understand why Debbie left, why she wasn’t enough, what she did wrong.

"It's not going to matter,"  Debbie knows how dangerous all of it can be, doesn't need to be reminded.

"We are going to get caught,” Lou tries to reason with her, knows it’s probably pointless, but tries all the same.

"Stop," Debbie breathes. "We're not." She knows that if she could just get Lou to _look_ at her for a minute—really look at her— run her thumb across those cheekbones until she finally got to look straight into those blue eyes, she could make her see that she has it all under control. But she isn’t sure they’re _there_ anymore, so she can’t. 

"Why do you do this?" Lou steps out of Debbie's personal space and Debbie misses her immediately. Even angry, Lou's presence helps keep her head level. "Why can't you just do a job? Why does there always have to be asterisk?"

Debbie focuses on keeping her face composed. Shrugs indifferently, but can't open her mouth through the tightness in her chest. She can't say anything. Saying something means lying and she can't lie to Lou again.

But then Lou says, "You frame him, I walk," and she knows that she has to say something because she can tell Lou might actually be serious, and God knows Lou might actually be better off if she _did_ walk, but Debbie needs her—for the heist, yes, but for everything else in between too.

"Stop," she begs but it comes out more dismissive-sounding than anything else and she almost winces at the hurt that replaces the fire in Lou's blue eyes. "Stop."

"This is just like the last time," and then Lou's turning and walking away and Debbie knows she has to stop her, can't do  _any of_ _this_  without her. Needs to find a way to make the lies into the truth because Lou is  _Lou_ , and it's always been her.

 

"Lou…Lou!... Lou…" Debbie finally gets Lou to face her again, and this time it’s her disregarding personal space. "He sent me to jail--you have no idea what that's like." Debbie's grateful for that, truth be told. Is glad that Lou's never had to be inside. Will give the entire world to make sure she never has to be. 

"Yeah, well," Lou sighs, giving in just a little. "He's gonna do it again."

"No, he’s not,” Debbie looks at Lou until she finally meets her eyes. “He's not."

 

They come to silent understanding--that's the sort of talking they've always been best at anyways.  
Lou looks down--shakes some sand off one of her boots and purses her lips.

"Why'd you do it?" She eventually asks, and uses picking a piece of hair off Debbie’s coat as an excuse to avoid meeting her gaze again.

"Do what?” Debbie snags Lou’s hand before it can fall back to her side, fiddling with the signet ring on her pinky, tracing the cursive _L_ engraved in the gold over and over, waiting for Lou to start the spiral on her resolve, but hoping she’s asking about something inconsequential, like why Debbie put on heeled boots to come down to the beach, not that Lou isn't currently in the same position.

"Let him send you to jail."

 

 


	2. Rhythm of Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou sees Debbie the same ways that Debbie sees Lou. Sees that she’s tired—has been so tired ever since Lou first picked her up from the cemetery; sees that there’s something she isn’t telling her that means her smiles are always smirks that don’t quite crinkle her nose the way Lou’s always loved...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of backstory, bit of time-jumping, bit of present.

Don’t bother trying to hide in plain sight—the whole notion is ridiculous. Just don’t hide at all. The more people see you, the less out of place you look, the less they’ll remember you five minutes after you’ve made off with their treasures and knickknacks.

Lou is utterly unapologetic for everything she is. She likes the feeling of eyes raking up and down; smirks every time those gazes get tangled in the web of necklaces she always wears, lost along the length of her legs because the velvet and the leather and the dark eyeliner are all a set of carnival mirrors for every mark she works. 

They’ll remember the cream of her leather jacket against their arm when she brushes past, the clink of her empty glass being placed on the bar, when she was younger they’d remember the feeling of her tongue on their throat. But they don’t remember how she tastes, or the curve of her waist, or how blue her eyes are because they don’t see _Lou_ , they just see the smoke she breathes out. 

That isn’t Deb, though.

Debbie _sees_ Lou—has been able to _see_ her since they met coming from opposite ends of pick-pocketing their way through a house party some upper-east-side senior was throwing while his parents were out of town. Their eyes met through a quartet of cheerleaders comparing nail polish, a couple making out against the stone mantle, and a brown leather sofa covered in underage drinkers. Lou was mid-swipe, lifting a jumble of crumpled fifties from a drunk football player’s varsity jacket pocket. Debbie saw her do it. Lou looked up to see her see it. Debbie held her gaze and smirked as she bumped into the couple making out and relieved the boy of the Rolex he’d likely borrowed from his father without permission. They made their first silent agreement then and there, and Debbie sealed it by tucking the watch into the back pocket of Lou’s skin-tight jeans when she walked by, giving a soft tug to Lou’s belt loop asking her to follow.

She did, _of course_ she did.

They spent the first of the fifties on greasy food and crappy coffee at the all-night diner down the street from Lou’s apartment, and the second, third, and fourth on booze at a club that never looked too closely at IDs. They never did sell the watch—Lou started wearing it instead, still does. From then on it was Debbie-and-Lou and Lou-and-Debbie, and jobs stopped feeling _right_ without the other so they just sort of gave up solo work without ever talking about it. 

***

“Why’d you let me keep it?” Lou asked years later, when Debbie came home to find her sitting at the kitchen table in the one-bedroom apartment they could barely afford, changing the Rolex battery. 

“Looks good on you,” was all Debbie offered as though she thought it more than explained giving up the pile of money they could have come into with the sale. “I’ve got something for us,” she changed the subject, opening the fridge, pulling out the bottle of wine they’d opened the night before and, oddly, not finished. She sipped straight from the bottle, setting it down in the middle of the table and sitting down across from Lou.

Lou clicked the back of the watch back into place, re-set the time, and replaced the watch on her wrist. “Plying me with wine? This must be good.”

“An art dealer,” Debbie told her. Lou took a sip of the wine. 

“Go on,” she can feel the grin building when she leans forward in her chair, looking at Debbie over the top of the bottle.

“He wants to me help him drive up the prices,” Debbie winks. “But what he doesn’t know is that _he’ll_ be selling fakes. You and I will be selling the real things.”

“That’s gonna be way more complicated than you’re making it seem,” Lou voices her doubts, putting the bottle back in the centre of the table and leaning back in her chair.

“Come on, baby,” Debbie coaxes, batting her eyelashes and feigning innocence. “We can get out of this place. Buy that loft we keep talking about.” 

“I’m parking my bike in the living room.”  
“Baby, we get that kind of money and you can park your bike just about anywhere you want.”

And as much as Lou was half joking about the condition of her agreement she knows Debbie meant it—would have let Lou park that bike in the living room of their one-bedroom if it would have made her happy because for all of Debbie Ocean’s stubborn tendencies she never had been able to say no to Lou since that first night.

“So, what’s the catch?” Despite the fact that she’s already committed to going through with everything Debbie’s come up with, Lou knows there’s something Debbie hasn’t told her yet by the way she’s chewing the inside of her cheek. 

“He can’t know about you,” she reaches for the wine and takes a gulp. “For this to work he has to think he’s only working with me.”

“You’re sure about this?”  
“We can do this, Lou. This is our ticket.”

*

“He wants me to be the seller next time.”  
“Is he insane?”  
“It’s twice the money…”  
“And _ten_ times the gamble!”  
“I know. Don’t worry, I already told him I wouldn’t do it.”

*

“I was starting to wonder if you’d used up all your phone calls.”  
“Yell at me later, I need you to listen.”  
“Between the two of us _I’m_ supposed to be listening to _you_ right now?”  
“I know. But you need to promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”  
“Define stupid.”  
“Don’t, Lou. Please. Just take the money we had and buy that loft… I gotta go.” 

***

Lou sees Debbie the same ways that Debbie sees Lou. Sees that she’s tired—has been so tired ever since Lou first picked her up from the cemetery; sees that there’s something she isn’t telling her that means her smiles are always smirks that don’t quite crinkle her nose the way Lou’s always loved; needs her to stop playing with her rings because, dammit, her warm fingers are just about all Lou can focus on and she’d bet Deb knows that and is doing it on purpose. 

“They had my signatures on paper and his testimony, Lou,” Debbie says looking at the water instead of the person she’s talking to. “Pretty sure it was signed and sealed at that point.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Lou squeezes Debbie’s fingers. “You’re way too good to get taken down like _that_ ,” Lou cocks her head to the side, tries to get Debbie to look at her again but she doesn’t give in. “What did he _have_?”

She sees the façade slide into place. Debbie stops chewing the inside of her cheek, her features relax, her shoulders square. She faces Lou but Lou knows it isn’t _really_ Debbie she’s looking at anymore.

“You know what,” She says before Debbie can say whatever it is she’s weaving together. “I have to check on the club,” she takes her hand back. “Don’t wait up.” Lou leaves her standing on the beach. Debbie knows she’ll come back—maybe not to her, but to the loft, to the team, to the heist. She knows she doesn’t have to chase her this time.

So, she stands on the beach in her heels and stares at the water. Maybe a $150 million-dollar apology wasn’t enough after all. The truth might be the only thing that can save Debbie-and-Lou and Lou-and-Debbie but Debbie isn’t really sure where to start, let alone how to tell her. The truth changes everything.

 


	3. She Doesn't Want Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Lou would be able to pick Debbie’s gait out anywhere—the gentle sway of her hips and meticulous heel-toe steps that bleed over from the need to move silently during cons combine into footfalls that Lou’s had memorized for decades.
> 
> ...
> 
> Lou wants Debbie so close to her that they occupy the same space the way they used to."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part where they get lost in their own heads until they find their way back out again.

It all takes times that she doesn’t have, or want, or want to need.

The watch she and Danny stole back and forth from each other for half their lives is in working order—the second hand just as reliable a measure as it was when he took Vegas just three months before she stole it for what ended up being the last time.

She uses that second hand to count out every minute of her plans, with contingencies for any possible variance.  
  
Debbie understands how to use time, how to _manipulate_ it, but she doesn’t know how to _wear_ it anymore.

Lou lets moments wrap around her in the same way that her broken-in leather jacket hugs further into the curve of her waist with every adventure and scar. On Debbie, it feels stiff and unforgiving. Five years, eight months, and twelve days of being told when you’re allowed to sleep, how quickly you have to eat, how long you’re allowed to spend in the shower has made the concept of luxuriating in time unfathomable.

She counts out the seconds and minutes that it takes for the sound of Lou’s bike to fade until she can’t hear it—three minutes, forty-five seconds--Lou's definitely speeding; measures the time from dusk until twilight, and then twilight until the sky goes dark against the blinking of a satellite overhead—two blinks every five seconds. Then she walks because the loft is always so loud. For the most part she doesn’t mind, lets it fade into comforting white noise that makes working easier after being used to prison where nothing was ever really silent.

Tonight it hurts.  
Tonight, time and noise drip down the back of Debbie’s throat in a sludge that she swallows back and tries not to gag on.  
Tonight, time seems to be all she has.

 

***

 

Lou sits in her office at the club going over books that she balanced a week ago. She wasn’t on the schedule to be around tonight, and they don’t need her for any of the night-to-night goings-on. It would probably make her managers antsy more than anything else if she were to hang around downstairs at the bar, breathing down their necks and watching over their shoulders. So, she gave her floor manager and her bar-lead a nod on her way in, closed her office door, signed off on a few pending invoices to save tomorrow’s day-manager from having to read over them, and since then she’s been staring at the wall.

There’s a live band playing downstairs tonight. Lou think they aren’t half bad until they start a cover of _Wild Horses_ , and then she doesn’t think about how good or not they are because the only thing she can think about is Deb, and the way her eyes always used to go soft, searching for some far-off place on the other side of whatever wall she’d be looking _through_ when it would play on Lou’s record player _before_.

In so many ways she’d completely expected the text from Debbie when she was released from prison. Unapologetically presumptuous, it was so completely Deb, and so completely _them_ that she hadn’t been able to do much other than scoff and smile because of course she would be there. Where else would she want to be? There’s space between them now, though—her and Deb. Space other than five years, eight months, and twelve days. Space that Lou can’t figure out how to reach through.

Debbie’s right there but Lou keeps on feeling like she’s gone.

Two days earlier they were standing by the model of The Met when Constance blurred into the room on her skateboard, at full speed. One of her wheels caught on a groove—once in a while keeping the original, worn-wood flooring paid off—and sent her into a barrel role across the living room in a glorious attempt to avoid landing on her head.

“Girl,” Nine-Ball barely looked up over the top of her laptop from where she sat slouched in an overstuffed armchair. “You got to stop doin’ that.”

“I’m good, I’m good—I think I broke my spleen—I’m good,” Constance insisted, pulling herself off the floor but holding her side.

“That isn’t where your spleen is,” Tammy informed the youngest member of their team from her spot on the couch beside Amita, who was watching a rerun of some reality show on the projector.

“You also don’t actually need your spleen,” Amita threw in without taking her eyes off the screen.

“That’s why I’m good—duh!” Constance rolled her eyes. So did Rose from her corner of the couch, but they were probably each doing so for opposite reasons.

Lou caught herself filing each detail of the scene meticulously in her mind until Debbie snorted lightly beside her, and _oh--_ _right_ , she doesn’t need to save up all the memories to tell Debbie later, anymore. Debbie’s _there, with her_.

Lou isn’t actually sure she is, though, _here_. They used to occupy the same space seamlessly, more than just physically. That physical side came back as though they’ve been keeping it up all along, but now she feels like there’s a piece of Debbie she doesn't know. But, it's a small piece and Deb would tell her if it was important—she’s pretty sure.

Lou’s eyes shift from the wall to the clock and she realizes it’s after 2am, last call come and gone, and she should probably leave before her closing managers are forced to either wait around, or come and kick her out of her own office so they can lock up for the night.

 

***

 

Debbie stands in front of Danny’s plaque in the mausoleum. She’s pretty sure he’s actually dead at this point. She brought Amita into the fold—one of their shared contacts and resources—and he didn’t turn up in so much as a whispered rumour. She can’t decide whether him probably actually being dead makes him being gone hurt more or less. 

She measures the time it takes for the sun to start creeping back into the sky by the shadow it casts moving across the marble wall until it reaches the very edge of Danny’s name.

 

***

 

Lou takes the long way back to the loft on her bike and walks past Debbie’s open bedroom door as the first whispers of morning light are just starting to creep in through the space where the curtain panels haven’t been closed all the way.

The shadows still outnumber the rays of light and she has to do a double-take to be sure, but Debbie definitely isn’t in her room. She can see the beach through the window at the end of the hall and Debbie isn’t there either. Lou’s about to start being concerned when she hears the front door click open softly and the sound of Debbie’s footsteps, almost inaudible, across the hardwood downstairs.

Lou would be able to pick Debbie’s gait out anywhere—the gentle sway of her hips and meticulous heel-toe steps that bleed over from the need to move silently during cons combine into footfalls that Lou’s had memorized for decades.

She finds Debbie in the kitchen, standing at the counter, staring into an empty teacup with the same far-away look she’d always get from that Rolling Stones album, completely ignoring the boiling kettle on the stove.

Lou knows Debbie knows she’s there—the day Debbie Ocean misses the sounds of somebody coming down a set of stairs behind her is the day they should probably all start saying back-to-back hail Mary’s. She turns off the burner under the kettle and moves to stand behind Debbie, running a hand up and down her side, resting her temple against the back of Debbie’s head.

“I don’t want to be mad at you anymore.”  
“I went to visit Danny.”  
“Maybe I don’t need to understand, for now.”  
“I’m sorry.”

Debbie turns to face Lou and Lou knows she means it. They understand each other—her and Deb—even when nobody else would think they were even having two sides of the same conversation.

“You look tired,” Lou tucks a piece of Debbie’s hair behind her ear.  
“You should see yourself,” comes with a wry wink.  
“Come to bed.”

Fingers linked loosely, Lou leads Debbie past the bedroom she’d set up for her and to her own at the end of the hall. Everything about it _is_ Lou—the hooks on the wall beside an oversize framed mirror filled with necklace chains and bracelets, the velvet curtains that are drawn closed because _obviously_ Lou would decorate her space as audaciously as she dresses, the vintage orange Gretsch guitar hanging on the wall opposite the door.

She tosses a spare t-shirt at Debbie, doesn’t want to let her out of her sight even for as long as it would take to get her own pajamas because more than needing answers, or to understand, or even making it make sense inside her head, Lou needs Debbie close to her. She takes the lead, stripping down before pulling her own sleep shirt over her head. 

They’ve seen each other in less. Hell, they’ve seen each other so wasted they could barely get out of their own party clothes, let alone put on anything to wear to bed, but lying on her back while Debbie quietly shrugs into the oversized and faded _Queen_ t-shirt Lou feels more naked than she has in a long time.

They start lying side by side, on their backs, breathing into the dark room. It isn’t close enough. Lou wants Debbie so close to her that they occupy the same space the way they used to. Thinks that maybe that really is gone and squeezes her eyes shut.

Then Debbie shifts, rolls onto her side, into Lou; settles her head into the crook of Lou’s neck and drapes an arm over her waist.

Debbie’s gone back to using the shampoo she always has—the scent of the hotel brand had been the first thing Lou noticed when Debbie climbed into the Toyota at the cemetery. Lou hadn’t planned on practically leaping across the centre console to wrap Debbie up in her arms, but the reality of seeing her after so long—a little older, and more tired, but still Deb—had proven overwhelming. But now she’s here with Lou, wrapping her up in soft skin and hair that smells like strawberries and mint and Lou thinks that she isn’t sure she’s been able to really _breathe_ in almost six years. But now she can.


	4. I'd Go Over a Cliff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For now though, Lou’s willing to humour her a bit longer and for the first time in weeks things feel like they used to. 
> 
> ...
> 
> She can almost forget that she has to miss Danny, or apologize to Lou, or deflect Tammy, or make sure Constance doesn’t break anything—herself included—with the way she rockets around on her skateboard indoors."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little less sure about this chapter than the others--it does everything I need it to, but it feels a little clunkier.
> 
> Hopefully that's just me being too critical.
> 
> Enjoy!

She realizes she’s dreaming all at once—isn’t actually on the cold tile floor of the prison bathroom with her ears ringing and her ribs screaming every time she tries to breathe properly [again]. She knows, but she can’t claw her way through the fog to get out so she closes her eyes and pictures Lou. Beautiful, badass Lou in leather, riding her bike down an open freeway, rings glinting in the sun. The open freeway would have given away that it was a dream if she hadn’t already figured it out.

Debbie’s eyes snap open. Her whole body spasms, fingers tensing, nails digging into whatever they find purchase on.

“What?” Lou’s groggy voice startles her. “Ow, Deb.”

Debbie forces her fingers to unclench from around Lou’s upper arm when she realizes where she is. “Sorry,” she blinks twice in fast succession, pushes herself off of Lou, and moves to get out of the bed.

“Hey,” Lou catches her elbow. “What’s wrong?”

Debbie pauses, perched on the edge of the mattress. “Nothing, Lou—weird dream.”

Lou brushes Debbie’s mane away from her face and Debbie sees the bright red crescent-shaped indents where her nails very nearly broke skin. That would leave a mark for a few days, Lou’s always bruised easily, calls it an occupational hazard of fair skin.

“Sorry,” she runs a gentle hand over the marks, then tries to move away again but Lou doesn’t relinquish her hold and instead sits up to catch her around the waist.

“What’s going on in there?” Lou nudges the side of Debbie’s head with her nose. “Debs?”

“We should make sure Nine-Ball has the blind spot covered.”

“It’s 7am, sweetheart. That girl isn’t going to be conscious for another two hours, and the museum doesn’t open for another hour after that… Talk to me.”

“Please, Lou?”

Lou knows what she’s asking without Debbie having to say it. She’ll talk when she’s ready, _if_ she’s ever ready. So, she lets it slide but doesn’t let her go; shifts to make enough room to pull Deb back down, not ready to let the distance between them become tangible again just yet. Debbie settles half on top of Lou, nose nuzzling her neck, soaking up as much of Lou’s warmth as she can. She gets cold when she’s tired, and that’s 80% of the time these days.

“I missed you, y’know,” Debbie mumbles into Lou’s neck after a few minutes of silence. “When I was inside.”  
“I know,” Lou soothes, catching Deb’s hand to play with her fingers.  
“Almost called you when they told me about Danny,” the weight of the words isn’t lost on Lou.  
“Why didn’t you?” She’d half expected her phone to ring that day—made sure it was always within reach for a week, round the clock. She feels Debbie shrug.  
“Wasn’t the first thing I wanted to say to you after that long.”  
“And _“where’s the fucking cemetery?”_ is what you settled on instead?”  
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Debbie snorts. “You know what I meant.”  
“I missed you too.”

Debbie knows she’ll have to confess eventually—has known all along that the moment would be inevitable. For now though, Lou’s willing to humour her a bit longer and for the first time in weeks things feel like they used to. If she closes her eyes and focusses on Lou’s fingers fiddling with her own, Lou’s heartbeat, how soft the sheets are, she can almost forget how much everything’s changed. She can almost forget that she has to miss Danny, or apologize to Lou, or deflect Tammy, or make sure Constance doesn’t break anything—herself included—with the way she rockets around on her skateboard indoors. Almost.

“Are you going to leave again?” Lou breaks the silence this time. “After, I mean.”  
“Do you want me to?”  
“No, Deb. I don’t.”

Debbie lets it sink in that Lou wants her even after everything and she almost breaks. Now isn’t the right time, though, if there ever will be one, so she swallows it back and clings to Lou a little more than she usually would. “I won’t leave you again.”

 

***

 

When nine o’clock rolls around and sounds of life start filtering from the various rooms down the hall, Debbie slips away from Lou quietly, feeling the chill that comes with exhaustion creep under her skin as soon as the physical contact is broken. Lou lets her go in another moment of silent understanding.

It isn’t that Debbie doesn’t know what to say, it’s that words she has don’t feel like enough to say it.

She tames her bedhead into loose waves, painstakingly paints away the dark circles under her eyes, and tugs on the softest cashmere sweater she owns before reaching into the back corner of her closet for the lockbox she’d made sure to locate the first night she stayed at the loft, after her little visit to Claude, while she and Lou waited for Chinese to arrive. Underneath two fake passports bearing Danny’s picture, a birthday card that Rusty sent to her on behalf of Danny while he was in prison the second time, half a set of floorplans for the bingo hall she and Lou had been hustling before… _before_ , and a few trick blackjack chips is a manila envelope that hasn’t been touched in six years. Debbie doesn’t want to touch it now, would much rather pretend it doesn’t exist. Better, burn it into ash. But she needs to know—needs to be sure, so she tucks the envelope under her arm, closes the box and slides it back into its corner of the closet, and wanders down the hall hoping that Nine-Ball hasn’t gone downstairs yet.

“What you need?” Nine-Ball regards Debbie from where she sits cross-legged in the centre of her bed in front of her laptop, flicking her dreads out of her face.  
“I have a few things I need cleaned up,” Debbie walks into the room, speaking quietly enough to not be overheard down the hall.  
“Like a footprint, or?” Nine-Ball raises an eyebrow.  
“Not exactly. They’re fake, in case you couldn’t tell just by looking at the print copies,” Debbie hands the folder to Nine-Ball. “I need to make sure they’re gone—really gone, and I’ll pay you an extra million to do it and not say anything to anyone.”

Nine-Ball’s fingers are already flying across her keyboard. “Some of these are a _hack_ job,” she doesn’t bother hiding her disdain for under-achievers in her field of work.  
“Figures,” Debbie says under her breath, more to herself than Nine.  
"Lou know ‘bout this?” Nine-Ball asks after closing her laptop and handing the folder back to Debbie.

Debbie takes the folder back with a pointed eyebrow raise. “That’s it?”  
“Really?” She looks almost offended that Debbie would doubt her thoroughness before going back to her previous line of questioning. “I’m jus’ sayin’ that your girl should probably get to hear about it from you.”

“We’re leaving to check the blind spot cameras in 15 minutes,” Debbie makes it clear that the topic is closed for discussion and pivots to leave the room. Nine-Ball follows after shoving her laptop into her backpack and grabbing the half-finished blunt off her nightstand.

She’ll do what Debbie asks and keep her mouth shut because despite any flack the two of them may have given each other initially, Nine-Ball has come to respect the woman. Lou is by-far the one to be a part of their group more often—to make sure they’re fed, to listen to their stories even if she doesn’t tell many of her own. But they’ve all seen the strength Debbie bleeds and they’d follow her over a cliff if she asked at this point.

Nine-Ball prides herself on her observation skills—isn’t always good with people, so gets to know them by watching and reading between the lines, learning their ticks.

She knows that Tammy’s torn. Misses her kids and her husband back in the suburbs but also loves the thrill of the heist and could probably be pulled into just about any job Debbie and Lou cooked up. Amita is the easiest to read, to be fair she doesn’t even really try to hide it. She misses her dad, wants her mother’s approval, and still doesn’t really understand what the eggplant emoji is supposed to mean no matter how many times Constance tries to explain the various implications.

Constance is complicated, and has probably formed the deepest attachment to Debbie and Lou out of the group. Rose is frenetic, and Lou is the biggest mystery of them all because despite being right in the middle of everything that goes on, and even though she clearly has the most history with Debbie, followed by Tammy at a close second, Nine-Ball can’t quite figure out the level of calm, collected, and in control she exudes.

It also hasn’t escaped Nine-Ball that just about the only thing Debbie would put before the heist is Lou. It’s quiet and never stated explicitly, but there’s no doubt in Nine-Ball’s mind that Debbie would put herself in the line of fire for her partner without thinking twice.

 

***

 

The fluorescent lights, unpredictable bodies moving around the museum, a lack of sleep, and the circles her brain won’t stop running combine to make Debbie’s head pound. By the time she meets Lou and Nine-Ball in the park outside she’s having to put a conscious effort into keeping her hands from shaking, and walking back into the loft it’s spiked from pounding to near-blinding.

“Yo!” Constance yells from the kitchen when the three of them get through the door. “How much space I have to work with?” 

Lou notices Debbie flinch at the noise, though it's subtle enough that she doubts anybody else did. “Twelve feet,” she answers, sliding Debbie coat off her shoulders to hang up before following suit with her own.

“Nice!” Constance high-fives Nine-Ball in the middle of riding her skateboard from the kitchen to the living room to flop onto the couch.

Rose is at a fitting with Daphne, Tammy is at “work” at Vogue, Nine-Ball and Constance are settling in front of the projector screen with a pair of gaming controllers, and Lou can see light coming from underneath the makeshift workshop down the hall where Amita must be working on their ‘extra’ details. With everyone accounted for she turns her attention back to Debbie who still has her shoes on and is be-lining upstairs towards her bedroom.

Debbie’s kneeling in front of the toilet in the bathroom that joins her room and Lou’s, not entirely sure what her body is going to do next, when Lou finds her.

“Headache?” Lou’s voice is soft.

“Splitting,” Debbie takes a steadying breath, decides she probably isn’t going to vomit, slowly stands up and moves towards Lou where she’s leaning against the doorframe on her bedroom's end of the bathroom.

“You need to sleep, baby,” Lou runs her fingers through Debbie’s hair. It’s longer than it ever was before, but Lou decided she likes it this way as soon as she saw her. Debbie leans in to the touch and meets Lou’s eyes.

Lou watches a shift happen behind Debbie’s gaze, a soft resolve.

“Wait here,” Debbie’s voice is weathered. Lou waits, hears Debbie open her closet and shift things around before she returns and motions towards Lou’s bedroom, follows her into the room, making sure to close both doors.

Lou watches Debbie spiral from weathered to exhausted to utterly defeated.  
Debbie holds the manila envelope she’d retrieved out for Lou to take.  

“You,” she says. Her eyes start to fill and Lou wants to wrap her in her arms instead of taking the envelope she’s being handed. “He had you.”


	5. Every Revolution is One Step Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There’s nothing to fight or hit or scream at so she quietly slips away. 
> 
> ...
> 
> She has no idea where she’s going, just needs air and to not be trapped inside four walls. She knows everything that’s in the folder she handed to Lou—all of it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some explanations, some inner monologue, an appearance from Constance saving the Muggle world, and Tammy doing her best to be a friend when she really had no idea what's going on.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was never really a question of _if_. She knew all along, in the back of her mind, that this was an eventuality.  

Fight or flight slams into her chest, only there’s nothing to fight. There’s nothing to punch when it’s an intangible list of things that she wishes she could go back and do again, or maybe just go back and off herself before she had the chance to ruin everything.

There’s nothing to fight or hit or scream at so she quietly slips away. 

Debbie doesn’t bother grabbing her coat, just moves down the stairs and past Nine-Ball and Constance in the main room as evenly as she can—Constance is too preoccupied waving her Wii controller around at the screen, saving the Muggles from Voldemort, to notice anything short of a firecracker going off in the same room; Debbie’s fairly sure Nine-Ball saw her leave through the side door but the girl was perceptive enough not to say anything.

She has no idea where she’s going, just needs air and to not be trapped inside four walls. She knows everything that’s in the folder she handed to Lou—all of it. Knows that the three pictures that are on top are the things that are going to unravel everything they’ve had since she got out.

 

*

 _Lou didn’t want to go out for her birthday—tried to remind Deb that_ they _were supposed to be laying low, but the second painting had just sold and Deb came back to their apartment knowing Claude had a B-list gallery show that was invitation-only, no-plus-ones. She appeared in front of Lou in their living room, holding a large box topped by a big red bow. Inside was a black velvet blazer with gold buttons, leather detailing, and the_ Balmain _insignia stitched onto the tag, in Lou’s size, with no errant security sensors to be found. Debbie may have_ paid  _for it._

 _“You like?”_  
_"You have to ask? How much of your cut did this cost you?”_  
_“Does it matter?  Just put it on and let me take you out.”_  
_“We aren’t supposed to be a_ we _right now, Debs. What if we run into Becker?”_  
_“He’s at an event.”_  
_“You’re sure?”_  
_“Let me show you off. It’s your birthday.”  
__“Wear those Valentino Rock-Stud stillettos I know you swiped last week and I’ll think about it.”_

_She made good on her word, flaunted having Lou on her arm all night._

_Debbie pulled Lou impossibly close with an arm around her waist._  
_“You just going to look at me like you want to devour me all night, then?”  
_ _Debbie bared her teeth playfully, crinkled her nose in a growl, and grazed Lou’s cheek. “Maybe I plan on having you for dessert.”_

 _Lou spun Deb around, back to front, pulled her hips into her own, and dipped her head to breathe into her neck. Debbie swayed her hips against Lou’s to the beat of the music and dropped her head back onto Lou’s shoulder.  
"_ _I’ve missed you,” Lou whispered against Debbie’s pulse point._

 _Debbie allowed Lou to pull her towards the bar, stepping into the_ v _of her legs when she sprawled onto one of the stools. Debbie offered a rare, soft smile while fingering the ends of Lou’s platinum blonde hair. It was longer than it had been when she moved out of their apartment and in with Claude at the start of the whole charade._

_The little things felt the heaviest—Lou growing her hair from her chin down to her shoulders, stealing a different kind of eyeliner, buying a different brand of peppermint tea, and maybe all of it was just coincidence, but in a rush Debbie was reminded how much she wanted the job-in-a-job to be over. She wanted to go home. “Happy Birthday, Lou.”_

_She didn’t count on anybody being loyal to the sleaze ball they were conning. Never noticed the flash of anything other than the strobe lights around the club._

_She underestimated Claude Becker like some discount con artist. He made no mention of the photos until Debbie told him she wouldn’t pose as the seller. Then, he dug up Lou’s immigration papers, her juvie record, and had a half-rate hacker make a few changes and put together a couple fake bank statements. He put the folder and the pictures in front of Debbie with two options: pose as the seller, or Lou would go down for the entire scam._ “Your secret little girlfriend won’t just go down,  _Deborah_ , they’ll send her back down under.”

 

*

Lou doesn’t know whether she’s going to laugh or cry, or maybe smash the lamp on her bedside table against the wall, she’s been thinking about replacing it anyways. She’s having trouble predicting much beyond taking her next inhale on top of the amount of focus it’s taking just to keep doing that. There’s enough in front of her that she’s sure she’d have never seen the States, or probably Deb again if it had been used. Some of it is shoddy work—she doesn’t need Nine-Ball’s expertise to know that much, but paired with the bits and pieces that are either true or well put together the cops would have called it an open-close case. 

She’s frozen beside the bed with all of it laid out in front of her. It’s the pictures she keeps going back to. That blazer fit her like a glove--not that she's ever expected anything less than that from Deb. Debbie Ocean has a way of knowing everything Lou is, and everything she isn't, and all of things in between without so much as blinking. Lou loves her for it. Always will.

The pictures though. If they weren’t so shadowed by circumstance Lou might have them framed. She hasn’t seen Deb look that open, or like she feels that safe in a long time. It knocks the wind out of her when she realizes it—Lou hasn’t seen Deb look like she feels that  _loved_ in a long time.

A knock on the bedroom door jolts Lou out of her head. Deb isn’t in the room with her anymore. Shit. A second knock is followed by the door opening to reveal Tammy.

Tammy breezes into the room in a huff, takes in the look on Lou's face, and shoves what she came up to ask about aside. “What’s going on?”

Lou opens and closes her mouth a few times. Tammy takes the liberty of crossing the hardwood to see the pages laid out on the duvet cover.

“Holy shit,” she whispers, taking it all in as everything clicks into place. The “rough patch,” Debbie’s prison sentence, her relationship with Claude. Tammy fingers the picture of Lou and Deb on the dance floor, pressed together, with Debbie's nose crinkled and pressing into Lou's cheek and she half-smiles at just how well the two of them fit together—have always fit together.

"She got this from Claude Becker?"  
"Yeah, guess so."  
"And you got it from her?"  
"No Tammy, I stole something I didn't even know existed from Deborah  _Ocean_."  
"Sorry."  
“I need to find Deb.”

 

*

 

Debbie only makes it as far as rounding the corner of the warehouse before her vision tunnels. She leans against the side of the building and tries to let the cold against her back ground her. 

All of it was her fault. She's known it for years. Didn’t need to ask Tammy’s opinion or tell Danny about it to know. 

Lou tried to say it was a bad idea, hadn’t even wanted to leave the apartment that night. 

Debbie drops her head back against the brickwork with a small thud.

God, she was selfish. If Lou didn’t already know it she does now, will be better off knowing Debbie isn’t a safe place to call home. She hurts people, can't ever keep them safe. Not even Danny. Not even Lou. She had tried though--maybe that counts for something. Maybe it counts for something that she'd have sold her soul and the rest of her life to Claude Becker if it meant he left Lou alone. She nearly did, and then she spent five years, eight months, and twelve days terrified that he'd use what he had anyways.

Lou’s safe now, though, Debbie’s seen to it. She planned that piece more meticulously than the Toussaint because more than millions of dollars in blingy Liz Taylor jewels, more than she wanted Lou to want her, even more than she wanted _Lou_ , she wanted Lou _safe_. And she was. And maybe that could be enough.


	6. I Will Stand Your Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Maybe this will be good for her
> 
> ...
> 
> It won't be better, but it could be good. That's what she'll tell herself anyways, every time she needs to push the ache in her chest back down so that she can take a full breath.
> 
> ...
> 
> Lou stalks towards Debbie. Debbie turns her head and sweeps her eyes over Lou slowly, wants to memorize the way her footsteps sound in heels, the sway of her hips, all of the things about Lou that she's taken for granted for over two decades before everything comes crashing down and the only part of her she gets to see anymore is the facade she wears for marks. Lou steps into Debbie's space..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little shorter, but I hope you enjoy!

She counts backwards from ten and forces her eyes wide open, a double-dare for the tears threatening to ruin her mascara. The air can’t burn away something that rests so deep in her soul though, doesn’t stop the droplets from gathering in her lashes.

She starts counting down again, this time from 100.

The cold seeps through her cashmere sweater, down to her insides—muscle-ligament-bungee cords pulling taught every time she tries to measure out her breathing.

 _Flight_  still simmers just under the surface, but really, where does she have to go?

Danny isn’t there to play big-brother anymore, isn’t around to tell her when he thinks she’s being an idiot or get out a box of cookies in the middle of the night because, “ _didn’t anybody ever tell you? Double-stuf Oreos are the cure for anything, Be-Be.”_ And Rusty is God-knows where.

Lou’s been  _home_  for almost as long as she can remember—longer than she really cares to remember if somebody’s asking about her childhood. Lou’s been the one place Debbie could  _breathe_ , and rest, and not have all the answers since forever and she wishes she hadn't had the answers this time around either.

They'll finish the job--she's sure of that much. Knows Lou well enough to know that even blazing-angry she'll see something through if she's committed to doing it. The closeness will be over though. She deserves it. Can't forgive herself and won't blame Lou when she can't either because if Debbie had just  _listened_  and not dragged her into that first job-in-a-job, and not insisted on tempting fate by taking her out for her birthday then Claude wouldn't have found out about _them_ at all, and Debbie wouldn't have gone to prison, and the loft could have been  _theirs_  instead of Lou's.  

Maybe this will be good for her—starting over, from the ground up.

Somewhere quiet, and maybe warm. Not by the ocean though. The blue would remind her of  _everything_  that's been  _her_  everything all along. It won't be better, but it could be good. That's what she'll tell herself anyways, every time she needs to push the ache in her chest back down so that she can take a full breath.

 

***

 

Tammy leans against the footboard of the bed watching Lou's jaw clench and her shoulders go rigid, her eyes flitting over the blown-up images over and over while she stands otherwise stock-still. Lou would probably appreciate it if she'd shut up, but she can't stop the questions. 

"So there wasn't a rough patch, was there?"  
"Not quite."  
"But she still left just before she got arrested?"  
"Yeah."  
"And you didn't know why?"  
"No."  
"Until now..."  
"Yes, Tammy."  
"You gonna give me more than a two word answer?"  
"Probably not."

There's an edge to Lou's voice, and the rush of information makes Tammy a little dizzy and she wonders how much of the story she got originally was drafted up by the two of them, or if Debbie's been trying to front everything on her own. Probably the latter. Debbie Ocean may not be prone to saving other people from heartache, but if there's one exception to that rule it has always, _always_  been Lou Miller. 

It isn't until Lou goes from completely still to surging across the room to grab the leather jacket draped over the back of an overstuffed armchair in the corner, almost frantic in her movements, that it dawns on Tammy what must be going on inside of  _her_. The information overload was enough to send Tammy reeling. Lou just found out that all of things she'd spend five years, eight months, and twelve days working through weren't the real story; that there wasn't anything to forgive Deb for at all, save perhaps for lying about why she went along with Becker's ridiculous request; that  _she_  was the reason Deb had let herself get put away.

"Hey," Tammy tries to step between Lou and the door but Lou side-steps around her. "You okay?"  
"Tammy," Lou levels her with a look that clearly says she has reached the end of whatever rope Lou was willing to give her. "I need to find Deb."

 

*

 

She isn't entirely sure where to start. Thinks about checking the cemetery, but Deb probably wouldn't go talk to Danny about this now that he isn't actually there to either tease her or give her crappy advice. Deb never went to Danny for actual insight. She went to Danny when she needed somebody to tell her what she already knew but needed to hear.

It was sweet really--almost disgustingly, the way Debbie and Danny were with each other. Always the last to forget an embarrassing moment, and the first line of defense. That job was supposed to be Lou's now, and she can't help but feel like she's failed right out of the gate. How the hell did she let Debbie get this past her? 

 

*

 

Debbie hears the click of Lou's boots before she comes around the corner, feels her presence before she opens her eyes to see her, still has her head tilted back, resting against the brick when she speaks. 

"I had Nine-Ball take care of it. It's gone."

Lou stalks towards Debbie. Debbie turns her head and sweeps her eyes over Lou slowly, wants to memorize the way her footsteps sound in heels, the sway of her hips, all of the things about Lou that she's taken for granted for over two decades before everything comes crashing down and the only part of her she gets to see anymore is the facade she wears for marks. Lou steps into Debbie's space and pulls her closer with a hand on the back of her neck.

"I love you, Jailbird."

 


	7. Yours and Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Debbie pushes Lou away from her and herself away from the wall in a sweep that’s followed almost immediately by stumbling over the heel of one of her boots when she tries to put distance between them. Lou steps forward, ready to catch if she falls; swallows the fear that she’s going to bolt back down along with her heart when Debbie stays where she is, back to Lou, a few paces away, arms wrapped around herself. Lou stays still, watching Debbie’s silhouette lit up by the streetlamp glow from around the corner until her head drops forward and she sees her shoulders shake."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lou is the softest badass the world's ever seen. That is all.

The castle she’s so carefully constructed, with its guard towers and stone-cold exterior and the dungeon just for her soul, crumbles on an inhale. The exhale that comes after is all shifting ground, cracking foundation, and she can’t get another full breath in through the dust of it all, can’t see through blurring eyes, can’t seem to stop her hand from shaking enough to find purchase on anything. Lou’s hand grabs hers out of the air—she’d know the feel of Lou’s hand around hers with her eyes closed—long fingers, cool metal rings, and a callous on the side of each index finger from driving her bike.

Everything is _too close_. Her mind can’t keep up, and her heart can’t make sense of it, and she needs to not feel so claustrophobic.

 

Debbie pushes Lou away from her and herself away from the wall in a sweep that’s followed almost immediately by stumbling over the heel of one of her boots when she tries to put distance between them. Lou steps forward, ready to catch if she falls; swallows the fear that she’s going to bolt back down along with her heart when Debbie stays where she is, back to Lou, a few paces away, arms wrapped around herself. Lou stays still, watching Debbie’s silhouette lit up by the streetlamp glow from around the corner until her head drops forward and she sees her shoulders shake.

“Debs?” Lou takes a measured step towards her.  
“Yell at me!” Debbie whips around with force that seems to surprise even herself, mascara just starting to streak down her cheeks.  
“What are you talking about?  
“It’s my fault. I did this. I ruined all of it,” she gestures vaguely to herself and Lou, the space between them, and the loft. “I dragged you into it then, and here we are now and I dragged you into it again, even after…” her shoulders slump and she closes her eyes. “Even after.”

“God, Deb,” she closes the distance between them. “It’s not your fault. Never was.”

Lou’s heart is somewhere between breaking and bursting. Isn’t sure how to _get_ to Deb where she’s locked herself away _._

“Hey, look at me,” Lou whispers, brushing Debbie’s hair away from her face. The eyes that finally meet Lou’s are lost—Lou isn’t sure she’s ever seen Deb look _lost_ before and she could scream for having missed it for this long because she should have _known._ Should have known that underneath the heist and the bravado and the bigger-than-life Deborah Ocean, _Deb_ was just trying to tread water. _Deb_ was trying to figure out a world that’s changed so much since she left it, and grieve for Danny without knowing if she was grieving the dead or just the absent, trying to figure out how to fit back into life with Lou, and Lou’s been so wrapped up in being beside her again that she didn’t even notice how close Deb was to slipping under. She never looked for the signs because as far as she’s ever been concerned Debbie’s always had a place waiting for her, whenever she came back. As far as Lou’s concerned, she’s Deb’s—has been for longer than she’s been keeping track. “You saved me, sweetheart.”

Lou saves Debbie from having to come up with an answer, replacing her hand on the back of her neck and pulling her closer. Then it’s Lou, just _Lou_ , and how she tastes, and how silky her hair is tangled around Debbie’s fingers, and how soft her leather jacket is fisted in Debbie's other hand.

The moment’s been culminating for half of forever, and now that it’s in Lou’s grasp she can’t let go, can’t loosen her grip for fear of it slipping out of her hand. She pulls Debbie closer—as close as she can get her—until they’re flush against each other and she can feel the way Debbie’s shaking, just a little, under the surface. Debbie’s fingers untangle from Lou’s hair to trail down the back of her neck and a shiver goes down Lou’s spine. She pulls away softly and pries her jacket from Debbie’s grasp, brushes her lips across her temple at the small sound of panic that comes in response to the physical distance Lou’s replaced between them.

“You’re freezing, baby,” Lou soothes, sliding the jacket from her shoulders to drape it around Debbie’s, and the tenderness of Lou’s words and the way she tucks the collar around her _just so_ is all it takes for the dam to finally break.

Debbie falls into Lou, falls apart all over Lou. She’s quiet, but Lou feels the small convulsions she can’t quite hold in, the tears on her neck, and she holds Debbie closer than she thinks she’s ever held anyone, closer to her heart than she’s ever let anyone else get.

She stills after a while, and the tears stop dripping down Lou’s collar. Stays where she is though—wrapped up in Lou’s jacket and in Lou, waiting for her mind and her heart to catch up with each other, thinking they might not ever totally unscramble on this particular topic but that if she doesn’t have to move from where she is, she might be okay with that.

Tammy appears from around the corner eventually. Lou tightens her arms around Debbie—isn’t ready to let go—and shoots a look over Debbie’s shoulder that’s a combination of questioning and warning.

“What’s up, Tam?” Debbie’s voice comes from her place burrowed into Lou’s shoulder. Nobody's managed to sneak up on Debbie Ocean since she was six years old and Danny hid in her closet, waiting for her to wake up and pick an outfit for school, on April Fool's Day. 

“The girls are all here—they want to order pizza,” Tammy leans against the wall of the loft. “They’re just about ready to send out a search party for you two.”

“Yeah, well, tell them they can f—”  
“—tell them we’ll be there in a minute.”

Tammy nods and turns to go back inside after sending Lou a wink with a nod in reference to the spot Debbie currently occupies.

“Don’t kill the messenger, Lou,” Debbie says wryly, straightening out in front of her. Lou gently wipes the remnants of tears from Debbie’s cheeks.

 

“It’s yours too, you know.”  
“Hm?”  
“The loft. It's never been mine—always been  _ours_.”

 


	8. Static

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Less on the heist-action, more on the inside-head action... and some lip-action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will get back to the action-packed canon, I promise. The insides of these characters are just so interesting, though, and I keep getting caught up!
> 
> Enjoy!

Words blow the floodgates wide open and nothing’s  _enough_ —she can’t get enough air, can’t reach enough skin, can’t get close enough. She needs more of Lou’s tongue in her mouth, Lou’s hands on her waist—more of  _Lou._  

She was touch-starved for five years, eight months, and twelve days and she hasn’t allowed herself to revel in not being  _alone_  since she got out. Couldn’t let herself want it because it would have been the end of her if she’d had it and then had to live without it. Now she  _needs_ everything all at once.

Debbie’s got half the buttons on Lou’s shirt open while her lips trace down her neck, pushing the silk out of the way to leave open-mouth kisses in the dip of her collar bone, then down to tease the lacy edge of her bra with her tongue.

“What are you wearing to the gala?”  
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Lou’s fingers dig into Debbie’s hips, and she realizes the meaning behind the question belatedly when Debbie’s teeth nip at the sensitive skin just above her bra and she sucks down hard, soothing the sting away with her tongue. Lou doesn't truthfully know what she's wearing to the Met. Tammy asked if she had requests, but Lou had been preoccupied.

 _"Something that_ looks _the way Keith Richards' guitar playing_ sounds _."_

Most of her attention at the time had been centred around talking Rose down from a Kluger-induced panic attack. Something about the neckline of the dress Rose was making. She never had given Tammy anything more to go on.

She can’t be bothered to care what the neckline shows or doesn't, though. Doesn’t think she’d care if she had to explain to Anna Wintour herself where the mark came from. Or Daphne Kluger—that could be fun. Becker would be with her and it might be worth the potentially risky situation to see the look on his face. She groans when cool air hits her nipple followed closely by Debbie's mouth, realizes that with her heart and her head running in circles trying to catch up with each other Debbie can't stop. She’s running on instinct and adrenaline, and as much as it really wouldn't take much for Deb to convince Lou to take her up against the outside of the warehouse she didn't exactly picture that particular moment being interrupted by the rest of the team demanding pizza.

Lou pulls Debbie away from her breast with a hand on her jaw, brings their lips back together briefly. 

"You know, Tammy was probably serious about that search party."  
"Maybe I don't care."  
"Mm, you'd care later."

Debbie sighs, acquiesces, but takes the time to gently slide Lou's bra back into place and close the buttons she'd opened. She leaves one more undone than Lou had when she'd put the outfit together, though. It makes for a nice view.

It’s Lou's turn for  _not enough_ , standing in the stillness trying to will her grip to release Debbie's hips, letting her head fall onto her shoulder to breathe her in.

"I've got you." 

***

There's a charged silence in the air inside the loft—exactly as Lou expected there to be. Debbie's made sure that every box is checked, every location cross-examined, every escape route timed. There's nothing left to do but wait because there isn't supposed to be anything left to do but wait.

Lou's used to the stillness, so is Tammy. They’ve had years of practice, even if it’s been a while. The rest of the girls feel it in their bones. They've been going, and going, and speeding along for so many weeks and the sudden all-stop sets them on edge. 

"Oh my God, Constance! Would you stop!" Amita's the first to snap when Constance whooshes past where she's sitting on the floor with a magazine, too fast and too close for comfort, on her skateboard. 

"Sorry," in truly not-typical fashion Constance seems to deflate and hops off her skateboard. It skids off across the floor and she shrinks down into the corner cushion of the couch. Lou can't help but squeeze her shoulder as she passes behind the sectional, trailing after Debbie towards the kitchen. It's not Constance’s fault or Amita's--they haven't learned how to channel the energy yet. 

"Pizza's on the way," Nine-Ball breaks the silence from behind her laptop to a cheer from everyone but Rose, who has too many straight pins pursed between her lips to even consider saying anything.

Debbie goes into the kitchen to make tea, feels Lou following without having to look and she’s thankful, so incredibly thankful that Lou knows without having to hear it. Knows that the night before a job is Debbie’s least favourite kind of limbo. She’s calm to the outside world, so calm that it’s unsettled people who didn’t even know they were up to anything the few times they tried to go out and blow off last-minute steam. Inside she’s running the timeline again and again; inside she’s calculating every possible misstep, every deviance from the plan, and how to deal with it if she has to; inside she gets tangled up when the planning is done and the only thing that keeps the tangles from pulling taught and suffocating her is Lou, having her close. Lou’s known it for years, and stays close enough for Debbie to reach out and touch, quietly and without question. Six years isn’t nearly enough to break the habit—Lou would probably do it without even realizing if they’d been apart for sixty.

She stands next to Debbie at the counter, arms brushing each time one of them breathes in. Lou watches Debbie make her tea and then take out a second mug, measure out three scoops of hot chocolate mix, and add hot water with a stir. Lou cocks her head to the side in a question. Debbie nods towards where Constance is still making herself as small as possible in the corner of the couch and Lou responds with an almost imperceptible nod of her head and quirk or her lips as they move back towards the would-be living room.

Lou’s usually the caretaker between the two of them. Sure, Debbie takes care of _Lou_ without pause, but Lou has “quite the saviour complex for a criminal,” as Debbie’s told her multiple times over the years. And then, in moments of stillness, when it’s least expected really, a softness pours out of Debbie to the people around her, the people she cares about and Lou counts herself as privileged to have both witnessed it, and been on the receiving end of it more times than she can count over the twenty-plus years they’ve been _them_.

Debbie places the hot chocolate in Constance’s hand casually and then also passes her the TV remote with a pointed look around the room daring anybody to question who she’s given show-selection privileges to, before perching herself on the arm of the wingback chair Lou sinks into.

Tammy’s phone rings and startles half the room. “Sorry,” she mutters and wanders off to talk to her children without an audience. Constance flips the projector-tv on and starts flipping through channels, settling on a “Modern Family” re-run.

“This is a good episode,” Amita discards her magazine and plops onto the couch beside Constance with a somewhat sheepish look. Constance grins and all is forgiven. Nine-Ball slides her headphones over her ears, sitting in the matching wingback to Lou’s in the opposite corner, fingers tapping across her keyboard.

Lou reaches for the paperback she tossed on the end-table days ago and flips to the dog-eared page she’d left off at while pulling Debbie off the arm of the chair and into her lap. Debbie settles across Lou's lap, settles into Lou, half reading along over her shoulder, half breathing in the familiar smell of Lou’s perfume, and catches a glimpse of the mark she left on Lou’s breast when she moves to turn the page and her shirt gapes a little.  _Not enough_ rushes back into her bloodstream at the sight. Her fingers trace along the back of Lou's shoulder, enjoying the feel of the silk under her fingertips, but what she really wants is skin. Lou's skin against hers. She wants to be greedy and selfish and have all of Lou. She'll gladly trade all of herself over in return. 

 

 


	9. Living Before We Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One part sparkle, one part shine, two parts sultry, and a little bit of slink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of your comments and kudos and love make me giddy--seriously.
> 
> Thanks for everyone who's been reading along, and a special thanks for everyone who's also been commenting along--the dedication is not lost on me!
> 
> This update is a bit longer than the last few. Enjoy.

She likes being seen, but only in the moment. She doesn’t like cameras.

The idea of somebody other than herself being able to go back in time and pick her apart puts her on edge. It’s easy to blame the avoidance on lifestyle—con artists make their living on stealing away undetected. That’s what she told Constance after blocking the camera phone that appeared in front of her face in the kitchen, with her hand; and Tammy, ages ago, when she made her delete the picture of Tommy as a baby, cooing and reaching for the array of shining necklaces she always wears, polite but firm with no room for argument.

The truth of the matter, that only Debbie’s ever managed to piece together, is that Lou’s hated cameras since she hit puberty and her father’s gaze turned in her direction for the first time. She ran away within the year, burned every album she could find before leaving. Couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving a trace of herself behind for him to continue gazing at even after she was gone. She’d almost forgotten what she looked like when she was little until Danny turned up one Christmas morning to deliver the news that her father was dead.

 

 _She didn’t ask how_ Danny _found out, probably didn’t want to know anyways, just took the scotch that he poured and downed it in a single go. It was Debbie who gently placed a faded poloroid on the counter in front of Lou. She picked it up with a shaky hand._

_“Is this?”_

_“Just look at the cheeks,” Debbie wrapped her arms around Lou's waist from behind and perched her chin on Lou’s shoulder. “It’s the eyes that give it away, though.”_

_Lou just stared at the image of a five-year-old blonde with over-sized blues staring at whoever was behind the lens, wearing black corduroy overalls, holding a half-melted blue popsicle with lips to match._

_“Found it in the very back corner of your mother’s closet, being used as a bookmark in a very dusty copy of The Wizard of Oz,” Danny offered in explanation._  
_“That was the book she was reading to me just before…”  
_ _“Figured it might have been important.”_

_The book appeared in front of her on the counter as well—worn corners, folded pages, and a spine held together by masking tape. Lou stared at it, then stared at the photo some more, then back to the book trying to force her thoughts and words back into working order. Debbie just held her a little tighter and breathed a kiss to the underside of her jaw._

She never did get over the aversion completely. Right now, she hates being on the other side of the cameras just as much as being in front of one, maybe more. She bites down on the toothpick in her mouth, looking over Nine-Ball’s shoulder, watching Debbie flirt with the edge of their blind spot. The mechanics of it all are flawless. She trusts Debbie to play her part while keeping everyone else inside on track, but she doesn’t like being this far away; doesn’t like that she can’t reach through the screen and pull Debbie out if something goes wrong; hates just how close Becker could get to her before she would be able to  _be_  there.

Lou doesn’t like that Debbie’s inside without her at her back, again, because no matter how good Debbie is and no matter how much she trusts Constance, and Amita, and especially Tammy—Tammy she'd trust with her own life—she still doesn’t trust them to keep Debbie safe the way she deserves to be kept safe. She doesn’t think she’ll ever trust anybody to keep watch over Debbie, not  _really_.

* 

Debbie slinks down the deserted hallways and into the exhibit through the shadows, gives Yen a nod when he catches her eye, dangling from the overhead truss, and reaches for Lou. She steps in close, ghosts a caress over the curve of her waist, wants a quiet moment for just them to revel in the middle of it all.

“Good?”  
“We’re about to outdo Danny’s life’s work.”

There’s a bittersweet tang to the words, the reality that he’ll never get the chance to take back the title Debbie's about to steal right out from under him. He’d be bursting if he could see Debbie now, swelling with pride until he floated all the way up to join Yen. Debbie sweeps back out of the room when the tell-tale sounds of a security radio echo from down the hall.

Lou makes sure to stay hidden in the dark when she glances around the corner. Debbie’s fine. Of  _course_  she’s fine. Babbling on in German as though it’s a typical Tuesday afternoon.

***

Constance stares at her reflection in the bathroom. She's not  _nervous_. She just doesn't do dresses and heels and  _diamonds_  very often. Okay, she's never done diamonds at all.  Nine and Amita and Tammy and Debbie all seem to slip into glamour like a second skin--they  _fit_. Constance would rather put her beanie back on her head and skateboard home. Maybe she can find Lou and hangout in the food truck they ‘borrowed’ for the night.

She can admit that the stones feel nice though—heavier than she expected, but cool and smooth and decadent like she's never experienced before. 

Debbie appears behind her, meeting her eyes in the mirror. Constance stays quiet and lets Debbie fix her hair--a twist tightened, a bobby pin adjusted, all of it swept forward over her right shoulder. She feels Debbie clasp the hook and eye at the top of the zipper that goes up the back of her dress as well.

"Good work, Constance," it comes with a wink and her insides warm as Debbie disappears back out of the bathroom, into the crowd. Lou believed in her enough to bring her in; Debbie believes in her enough to have kept her around; who cares if she doesn’t have a family or a real home to go back to, from before? She has  _people_  now, and the millions from this job will be more than enough to take care of an upgrade to where she crashes at night.

***

Debbie stands on the corner and triple-checks the time, keeps her heartbeat steady, breathing with the tick of the second hand—ten in, ten out. The cool night air is welcome against her overheated skin after the claustrophobic feeling of too many bodies in a single room.

Lou's never late. She's never early either. She walks into spaces as though she owns them exactly when she's supposed to, every time. And then, there she is, shimmering from across the street, waiting for the traffic light to change.

It's taking too long. Debbie's never been good at being patient, and she can't figure out when they started listening to things like red lights to begin with. She needs Lou like she doesn't think she's needed anything before in her life—needs her skin under her fingertips, her limbs tangled up with her own, needs to be breathing the same air and when the light changes, and Lou tugs the plunging neckline of her jumpsuit while she swaggers across the road, Debbie thinks she understands what all those songs mean when they talk about another person burning you away completely. She wants Lou to burn her away until there's nothing left but the parts of her that Lou's touched. 

Lou watches Debbie. The smirk, the dark eyes, the way she turns and moves—the slow pace waiting for Lou to fall in step beside her. There's a group of twenty-somethings across the street staring while they walk down the sidewalk.

"You always have had a flare for spectacular." 

Debbie slides her hand into Lou's, threads their fingers together. They walk that way, quiet save for the synced rhythm of their heels against the pavement, until they're standing beside Lou's bike in the back corner of the covered parking lot. 

The first thing Lou does when she turns to face Debbie is tug her wig off and gently, meticulously remove all of the pins so her dark hair can tumble around her shoulders. 

"Not into blonde's, baby?"  
"You could say I have a type."

The next thing she does is tangle her fingers in those waves and pull Debbie forward to seal their lips together. She can taste the champagne from the gala on Debbie's tongue and feels a little drunk off of it, and the jewels they're both wearing, and the feelings of Debbie pressed up against her 

"You did it, Jailbird."  
"Take me home, Lou."

* 

Debbie’s standing in the window, velvet curtains half open, looking out at the city lights. Lou wraps an arm around her waist from behind, a tumbler of bourbon held loosely in her other hand. Debbie takes inventory of the feeling of Lou against her back, how her fingers curl around her hip, her lips ghosting up her neck, how her tongue flicks out over the sensitive spot just under her ear, and it isn’t until Lou starts to sway them softly that Debbie even really notices the record Lou’s put on.

The opening chords of _Wild Horses_ fill the room.

She lifts the half-empty glass from Lou’s hand, takes a sip, and sets it on the window sill before turning in her arms. Debbie drags her thumb over her bottom lip for Lou to catch between her teeth, biting down just a little, and the smoulder from Lou’s eyes settles deep inside her and start to simmer.

“I _want_ you.”

The words wrap around them and Lou’s lips are on hers, then across her cheek, along her jaw, and back to that spot on her neck that stops her from being able to think straight, nibbling—sucking—biting down hard enough to draw a soft whine and leave a mark that won’t leave anybody questioning who she belongs to.

Debbie tugs Lou’s hair, brings their mouths back together while Lou opens the zipper down the side of her gown and peels the fabric away from her body to pool on the floor around her feet. She kisses Debbie again, skims her hands over her hips, up her ribs, ghosts the sides of her breasts, and backs her towards the bed until she’s spread out in front of her against the silk comforter.

Lou leans over Debbie, one hand planted beside her head to hold her weight while the other caresses the inside of her thigh, so so _close_ , teases the edge of her satin panties.

“You’re so damn beautiful.”  
“You’re overdressed.”

 


	10. Going Quiet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay... I went soft again. And there's a LITTLE bit more angst (please don't excommunicate me!)... but it gets sexy, so that has to make up for something!
> 
> Enjoy!

She's never been the early riser between the two of them—prefers waking to the symphony of mid-day traffic noise rather than the sunrise. Today though, she's awake when the first breaths of sunlight are filtering in through the still-half-open curtains. She's tracing the ridges of Debbie's spine, doesn't remember each vertebra being so prominent  _before_. But that will be part of living in the  _after_. There are other things hovering over her thoughts.

Debbie's lying diagonally across her chest, hair splayed around both their shoulders, face tucked in under her jaw. Lou likes the feeling of the weight on top of her confirming that Deb is there, tangled up in her, even when she closes her eyes. She also isn't complaining about the amount of skin spread out within her reach. Her fingers wander from the base of Debbie's spine, across her waist, down to the top of her thigh, tracing invisible patterns. Then, she picks up the subtle increase of Debbie's inhales and the flutter of eyelashes against her neck.

Debbie presses her fingers into Lou’s hip, more purposeful than the hand that rests on her waist, slips a thigh between Lou's, fitting it against her centre. Lou's hand lands on her lower back, pulling her closer. Debbie works her mouth against Lou's throat—slow and wet—until she hears the barely-audible keen that she's been waiting for and lifts her head to press their lips together. Lou tightens her arm around Debbie's back and cradles her jaw with her other hand. It's Debbie who pulls back to meet Lou's blue eyes with a dark, heated look.

"You're awake exceptionally early."

Lou's fingers resume their patterns over Debbie's skin. She spent the night before remembering all the details of Debbie Ocean's body—knows all of the scars and the sins and the sacrilegious habits. Every heartache, and cry of pain, every whimper in the dark, and the stories that are funny a decade removed even if they weren't at the time. She was the one to piece things back together for most of them, physically and sometimes emotionally. Except for the new ones, the ones that have appeared since the last time she took stock. Debbie pushes up, shifts to straddle her.

Lou's turned quiet. Debbie knows that after quiet comes words; words she isn't sure she wants to pour out. She'd rather sink into Lou's heat and work on building the  _after_  than pick apart the  _getting there_.

"Where'd they come from, Deb?"   
"You really want to talk about that right now?"

She rolls her hips against Lou's in the beginnings of a slow rhythm. Lou's hands trail up to her breasts; she weighs the left in her palm, runs her thumb over the three puckered circles on the underside of the right. Debbie bites her lip, half against the words threatening to tumble out, half when she feels Lou's thumb across her nipple. The silence sets in again while Lou continues tracing invisible lines from one mark to the next, across the third, the invisible edges of a triangle, but drops her other hand away from Debbie's body. 

"Debs?"  
"One of my cellmates wasn't too excited about the news of my early parole."  
"So, she—"  
"Gave me what she thought I deserved with one of the cigarettes I sold her? Something like that."   
"When?"  
"Three months ago." 

Debbie tips Lou's head up with a finger under her chin.

"Don't, Lou."  
"That cellmate have a name?"  
"Lou, you didn't do this. I'm going to need you to let it go."  
"You were in there because of me!"  
"And I'd do it again."

And she would. Lou's safe and Lou's here and Lou isn't half a world away from her, and that's all she could ask for, really. All she'd be able to think of asking for if she was put on the spot. Well, that and maybe knowing where Danny is or was or was going, but that’s a whole other can of worms she definitely doesn’t want to open.  Debbie reclaims Lou's mouth, half expects to be pushed away, but Lou knows the ins and outs of Debbie, knows that she needs this—can feel her need to be in control for a little while in the way her lips move, the way her thighs clench tight on the outside of Lou’s hips, the way she sucks Lou’s bottom lip between her own. So, she kisses her back, hard and demanding, grabs Debbie's thighs when she rolls her hips forward and down, into Lou. Her hands clench tighter and tighter until Debbie breaks away, drags her tongue across Lou's cheekbone, nibbles on her earlobe, sucks another blemish onto her neck.

"I wanna taste you."

Lou doesn't have time to argue. Can't get more than a gasp and a moan out while Debbie trails her lips down her body, pausing to kiss the ticklish spot on Lou's ribs that makes her squirm, to find the scar from when she had her appendix removed--she'd refused to go to the hospital; by the time Debbie dragged her into the ER it was on the verge of bursting, and the emergency surgery left a line that's jagged and roped. Debbie doesn't stop after that until she's breathing kisses so close to where Lou wants her; flicking her tongue over Lou's clit, a self-satisfied groan slipping from her lips when Lou's hips hitch up in response. She reaches down to tuck Debbie's hair behind her ear; looks down to see Debbie staring up at her from between her thighs, tongue flicking out between her lips again.

"Christ, Deb."  
"What do you want, baby?"  
"Your mouth."  

Debbie knows all the buttons on Lou's body, how to press them, what order to press them in to have Lou coming apart on her tongue. Knows how to gentle her back down, when to start kissing her way back up her body—dips her tongue into valley between her breasts, across her nipples, darkens the mark from the night before the Met that's just starting to fade to dusty pink, back to a deep red. That’s the tipping point; Lou stops being able to reign herself in, hauls Debbie back up to straddle her again, tastes herself on Debbie’s lips, and presses a finger, then two into slick heat. Adds a third when Debbie sinks down onto her and rasps out “ _more_ ” in a whisper.

Lou knows Debbie wants her, knows it now more than ever before with the truth of her prison sentence out in the open between them, but it’s nice to  _feel_  it in the secret places that can’t deny just how much Debbie craves her touch. She’ll take her time another time—take the time to taste Debbie, make her beg over and over, but they’re too far gone for any more  _slow_ this time. Debbie drops her head forward and closes her eyes when she starts to unravel.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart.”  
“Mm.”  
“Let me see you.”

Debbie opens her eyes to find Lou’s—the only person she’s ever let see her fall over the edge like  _this_ , peering through her eyes, down to her insides her when her breath gets lost somewhere in the back of her throat. She falls into her when she loses control, presses as much of her skin against Lou’s as she can, focuses her mind on the points they’re connected while trying to re-balance her sense of time and place and reality. Lou slides her fingers from Debbie, licks them clean, runs her other hand up and down her back.

“The girls will be here in a while,” Lou reminds her, not making much of a move to get either of them out of bed.  
“We should make that phone call.”  
“Shower first.”

***

Debbie’s pouring water into her mug—over a teabag—when Tammy walks in. She's the first to arrive, with breakfast from the best bakery between her house and the loft in tow.

“Hey Tam-Tam,” Debbie replaces the kettle on the stove top and cradles the warm mug. Tammy deposits the bakery bags on the counter and crosses the living room to the case that houses a set of velvet-lined boxes for all the Toussaint pieces.

“Where’s Lou?” Tammy delicately lays her earrings from the gala in their box, puts the box back into the case, and closes the case with a click.

“Shower,” Debbie puts her mug down in favour of spreading the spoils of Tammy’s breakfast run out across the counter for when the girls arrive.   
She and Lou were going to shower separately until Lou appeared under the water, behind her, running her tongue up the length of her neck.

The door flings open for Constance and Amita to all but fall through, each attempting to be the first one in. They're followed by Nine-Ball, still wearing her sunglasses, and Rose who looks frazzled at the outbursts being traded back and forth between the first two.

“Yes—food!” Constance forgets whatever it is she'd been trying to convince Amita of and heads straight for the kitchen.  
“Diamonds first.” Lou comes down the stairs, not even trying to hide the hickeys, wearing one of her fitted vests with a low-v, suit jacket in hand.

“Damn,” Nine-Ball’s eyes take stock of the two smudges on Lou’s neck, and the dark one on her breast, above the deep-cut neckline of her vest. “Mama got you good, motorcycle lady.”

“Holy shit,” Amita’s the first to notice the matching mark when Debbie turns to lean back against the counter, placing herself where Lou will need to step into her space to reach the coffee that’s just finished brewing.

Lou winks obscenely. "Jewels go in the case by the stage."

The girls unload their pockets into the waiting velvet boxes. There's some discord about which piece goes in which box, Amita overrules the extra opinions.   
"I literally do this every day. You're really going to try to argue with me?"

Lou brushes Debbie' shoulder when she reaches for a mug, her arm when she goes for the coffee pot. Debbie steps even closer. 

"Did you call?"  
"Some time tonight."   
"You even going to try to hide those?" 

Debbie drops her eyes to the hickey on Lou's breast when Lou faces her and sips her coffee, and then back up; Debbie's eyes turn dark thinking about putting the bite there. Lou drops a hand high on Debbie's waist, high enough that her thumb can brush the underside of Debbie's breast through her shirt. 

"You want more already, sweetheart?"  
"Maybe."  
"I always want you, jailbird. You know that, right?"

*

Tammy watches Deb and Lou speaking in hushed whispers, all but pressed up against each other, occupying space in the world where they revolve around each other more than the real one. She wonders if they know—what they have, where it is that they go when it's just the two of them, that they've always been perfect when they're together.

Do they know that not everybody shares a heartbeat with the person they love, no matter how _much_ they love them? Do they know that watching them together is like watching the sunset—always expected but never any less spectacular. When Lou breathes in, Deb breathes out.  

Her first instinct is to protect them both from each other because that's what she did when they were all in their 20's and time hadn't softened the sharp corners yet. Lou cried the first time Debbie stayed out all night after a date with whatever guy was the mark of the month. She didn't make a sound about it but Tammy caught her coming out of the bathroom with bloodshot eyes when they woke up and Debbie wasn't home for breakfast. Deb was harder to pin down, but Tammy eventually caught on to how quiet she'd get when Lou would come home later than usual, smelling of perfume that wasn't hers. They've spent more than half their lives revolving around each other, closer and closer, and Tammy was never quite sure whether the moment they collided would be fireworks or destruction. It was always inevitable, though, and she's glad it's the former. 

She envies them, just a little. Envies the easy way they understand each other. Loves her husband and her children, wouldn't want to give up that she became the person she is with them. But there's something about the way Lou pulls every time Debbie pushes that makes her wonder if there's somebody that could be  _that_  out there in the world for everyone, or if it's something that gets formed walking through hellfire. 

"Tammy? Anybody home?" Tammy startles and finds Amita beside her holding out a mimosa. 

 

Mimosas turn into just champagne, turn into Constance asleep, curled up in the corner of the couch, Tammy and Amita watching a Pixar movie, Nine-Ball lounging in her usual chair, and Rose moaning about how many pastries she ate.

Debbie slips out the back door and crosses the pavement to the beach, thinks that maybe after all the sound of prison, and living with a whole team for weeks, and the gala, maybe she's ready for some quiet. But quiet is kind of like time, she isn't sure she knows how to be  _in_  the quiet anymore until Lou slips out of the warehouse and appears on the beach, wraps her arms around her from behind, and then  _this_  and  _here_  are the most obvious things in the world.  

* 

Constance is still dozing on the couch when a pillow lands on her face. When she opens her eyes she can't quite decide whether Nine-Ball or Amita was the culprit. Probably Nine, she has better aim, but it's Amita who looks ready to explode.

"Ow! What?"  
"Look! Look! out on the beach!"   
"Aw shit, mom and Lou are having a moment."  
"Mom?"  
"I mean, yeah. She's been mothering all of us except Tammy for weeks. She's even got the 'I know that you know that I know what you did' stare down-pat."


	11. Don't Ask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the beginning of the wind-down. I know where I want this to go, but I had some trouble writing this in-between part.
> 
> So, here's a short little update that jumps around between different perspectives a bit, but I hope you enjoy!

There's a calm that comes with completing the puzzle. It permeates the loft—all the voices that fill the vaulted-ceiling space. The celebration is much less hedonistic than she expected, even after Constance finds the good tequila at the very back of the liquor cabinet, bottle coated in a layer of dust that needs to be wiped off before cracking the seal. It's from when she and Lou crossed the border to celebrate their first big job going off in San Diego. 

Debbie watches from her spot leaning against the outside of the freestanding stairs, close enough to be there with all of them, far enough to be left mostly with her thoughts. Tammy's laughing a can't-hold-it-in laugh at something Nine-Ball said with a raised eyebrow; Rose is slouched into a chair with a gel eye mask pulled down over her face; Constance repeats the same card trick again and again for Amita and Daphne, who are determined to figure out how she's doing it. _Daphne_ \--perhaps the only thing Debbie didn't fully anticipate. There were fifteen scenarios that involved her, and half a dozen that even had them bringing her into the fold, but her sliding seamlessly into the group as though she'd been there all along? That was a surprise. 

Lou appears in front of her, a tumbler in each hand, offering one to Debbie. She holds Lou's gaze and takes a sip.

"Good tequila."  
"It was a good job."  
"That one or this one?"  
"Up to you."   
"That one ended with us skinny dipping in the ocean--not bad."  
"This one ended with you in my bed."

*** 

"She looks just like you," Tammy jumps when Lou speaks from over her shoulder. She's flipping through pictures of Madison—her youngest—from her husband, on her phone.  
"Robert calls her my mini-me."  
"The world is doomed." 

Tammy knows she's kidding, that Lou loves both her kids, gets along with her husband, sometimes more naturally than she gets along with Tammy—Lou and Robert share a love of vintage motorcycles and cars. She was there within hours of both of them being born, hugging Tammy before she'd even had the chance to shower and get cleaned up. She also knows Lou sent pictures from both of those days to Deb because Deb called her, from prison, both times, to tell her how beautiful the babies were, and how beautiful motherhood looked on Tammy. And then, both times, she got quiet and Tammy knew that it was her way of saying she wished she was there too, even if she couldn't get the words out, because Deb was Deb, but she was also Deborah Ocean, and Ocean's aren't usually good at feelings—none of them. 

"So, you and Deb?" Tammy does her best to hold in the grin, gives Lou the side-eye while flipping from the picture of Madison playing dress-up, to one of Tommy wearing what is probably his baseball uniform under a thick layer of mud. 

Lou laughs at the picture and refuses to say anything. Purses her lips, sucks in her cheeks, and makes a face that Tammy knows well from years of Lou evading everybody's questions.

"It's about damn time. How's she doing?"  
"Being in my bed? That's probably something you should ask her."  
"You know what I meant."

For all the fifteen-feet-tall attitude Lou exudes on the regular she deflates a little when Tammy doesn't let her question drop. 

"I dunno, Tam. She just pulled off the jewelry heist of the century, under that light she's pretty good."  
"And under the actual light of day?"  
"She's okay. Sometimes better than others."   
"You know she's wanted you since you were twenty, right?"   
"I know," Lou's usual smug confidence returns. "She had to work for it."

***

She falls asleep the way she does everything else in her life—slow, meticulous, and then all at once.

Her breathing slowly softens and evens out, the tension leaves her jaw, her hair tumbles in every direction across the pillow, and Lou's left feeling as though she's witnessing something sacred. At least until whatever demons she hasn't exorcised yet come up when her defences are down.

It always starts with a jerk and a whimper—such an unfamiliar sound coming from Debbie that the first time Lou heard it she rocketed out of sleep, eyes madly scanning the room for an intruder. Then Debbie jerked again in her arms and Lou looked down to find her eyes shut tight while her breathing picked up. She was still asleep—just barely grasping at the edge of managing to tug herself back into the waking world but continually being pulled back under. 

By the fourth night Lou expects it, pulls her a little closer, tugs the blankets a little higher. This time, though, Debbie jerks herself awake, flying up before where she actually _is_ sets in, sitting ramrod, trying to clear the bleariness from her eyes and the blurring from the inside of her head. Lou sits up, leans across to Debbie's side of the mattress to catch her hand and tug her back down so they're lying face to face.

"Shhh," she rakes her fingers through Debbie's waves, clears them away from her face.  
“I knew I was dreaming again.”  
"I wish you'd tell me what goes on in there."  
"I can't. Not yet... Soon."  
"I know, honey." 

***

“So wait,” Amita says around a spoonful of ice cream that constitutes the night’s dinner. “If Debbie’s “mom,” who’s Lou?” The question is technically for Constance, who’s still referring to their leader by the nickname, but it’s posed to the room.

“Uhhh. It makes her Lou?” Constance shrugs and then grimaces when she notices she’s dropped a dollop of marshmallow fluff from her sundae onto her shirt. “Shit. I just washed this." 

Debbie and Lou had gone out to meet with John Frazier and Tammy hadn’t arrived yet, leaving the youngest members of the group to their own devices. They’d ended up curled into the couches and armchairs playing twenty-questions, which deteriorated intro trivia 

“No,” Daphne pops a cherry into her mouth and smirks. “I’m pretty sure it makes her _daddy_.”

There’s a collective shriek as the front door opens to reveal Tammy. “I’m not asking.”


	12. Almost Always

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fairly sure this will be the second-last instalment for this story--unless all hell breaks loose with the next chapter and I just lose control of it altogether...which isn't totally out of the question, lol.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read, and left kudos, and especially commented--you make me feel like a rock star. I hope you guys like this one!  
> Side Bar: the lyrics quoted in this chapter are from "Home Sweet Highway" by Ashley McBryde.
> 
> Oh! and Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians reading this :)

"Y'know, more than one thing can make you happy. Ever thought about that?"  
"...No."  
"Well, maybe you should."

It isn't a lie—she  _hasn't_ ever thought about it much. She never needed to. Lou and jobs have been inextricably tied together for almost as long as she can remember and there hasn't ever been any part of her that wanted life without Lou, so there wasn't any part of her that wanted life without jobs. Lou found her way under Debbie’s skin and into her bloodstream long before she ever realized it was happening, just like her family's  _legacy_ —both are a part of her now. 

"Thinking about it makes my face hurt."  
"I'm sure it does."

It actually makes her heart hurt to think about how things could have gone when Lou found out the real story behind the last six years of their lives. She tries not to during her waking hours, has less of a say in the matter when her eyes are closed at night. 

"You should come by sometime. Don’t wear that fur coat though. Madison would add it to her costume box when you turned around and you’d probably never see it again."  
"You offering to let me corrupt your Cherubs, Tam-Tam?"  
"I'd prefer if you didn't. Seriously though, Deb, you're welcome there any time."  
"I know."  
“Bring Lou. The kids ask about her.”

She watches Tammy pull away in her mom-mobile while she stands in the open door with the loft spread out behind her, quiet and empty. She doesn't really want to face it, but Tammy's going home to pizza, and Constance is settling into her new apartment. Amita is in Paris, Daphne and Rose are on location somewhere or other, and Lou is on the other side of the country, in a different time zone. Debbie's glad Lou went—wouldn't hear anything of it when Lou asked her if she was sure it was okay. She just doesn't like that the coast of California is too far to reach out and touch, too far to feel—too  _far_.

Separation anxiety isn't a term she’s ever considered using in regards to herself. Being part of the  _Ocean_  lineage meant adjusting to long absences at a young age. Sometimes people went to prison, sometimes they went into hiding to avoid prison, sometimes they left and came back with beautiful gifts and a shiny new offshore bank account.

The first time she remembers her father leaving was for a job, though she didn't know that at the time. At the time she just knew that he was going to miss her ballet recital and Danny's birthday. He came home and draped a silk sari around her five-year-old frame, spun her around to sparkle in the sunshine, and she just about forgot about everything he hadn't been there for. When she got older it was Danny that was more prone to long-term stays away from home. He and Debbie planned things the same way--piece by piece until all of it fit together perfectly. Danny just liked to plan everything from the middle of where it would all go down, rather than with the perspective Debbie liked to use distance for. 

Lou though, Lou's always been beside her for all of it. The scheming, the set-up, the pay-out. 

Even this time, lying in her prison bunk and closing her eyes to play it all out in her head, the figment of Lou was almost real enough to touch. Almost. And now she's touched the real thing and her fingers won't stop tingling and all she wants is to fall into Lou and bask in the after-glow.

The loft feels ever-expansive. She realizes that she loves it when Lou is in it with her, but without Lou she might just hate it altogether. Might just hate all of New York for the weeks that Lou isn't in it too. 

 

***

 

Lou strides into the middle-of-nowhere diner shaking dust off her boots, finger combing wind out of her hair, sliding into the second booth in the row down the left side of the 80's throwback eatery.

"Lou Miller. You look good."  
"You look tired, Rusty."  
"Yeah, well, turning over rocks your best friend might be under all over the world will do that."  
"You're not sure he's dead, then?"  
"The only time I'll be sure he's dead is when I'm sitting beside him in whatever comes after."

Lou shakes her head, laughs a little, and steals a couple fries off Rusty's plate. 

“Go ahead and help yourself, please,” Rusty’s tone is a little dry and a little scathing, and Lou ignores it. She’s known Rusty as long as she knew Danny, which is only a few years less than she’s known Deb. She stopped paying attention to his snark a full decade and a half ago.

"I need a favour."   
"Maybe."  
"I need someone taken care of."  
"You got any more than that?"  
"Depends. You going to be of help?" 

They come to something of a face-off across the table, each waiting for the other to give in first. Rusty likes Lou—has since Debbie first brought her around. She reminds him a bit of himself when he was younger, the version of himself he was when he was working with Danny. But if he and Danny were a show to see, Debbie and Lou were meant for the history books. Lou purses her lips, cocks an eyebrow, and waits Rusty out.

"Alright. What do you need? And what does it have to do with Debbie?"  
"Deb isn’t here, Rusty. What if it has nothing to do with her?"  
"Come on Miller, you may be able to wear me down but don't talk to me like I'm an idiot. There's nothing in your life that hasn't involved Danny's kid sister since the two of your graduated high school."  
"Your words."  
"For the record, there's no part of her life that hasn't revolved around you for just as long. Loving her looks good on you."

 

***

 

Debbie pulls her phone out of her pocket after the fourth _ding_ in less than five minutes. Three of the alerts came from the group message thread that Constance insisted on adding all of them to the last day everyone was at the loft.

“What’s up YouTube? Check out my new crib! I’m on the co-op board!” The video from Constance starts without having to press _play_ —Nine-Ball probably taught her that trick. It’s a nice condo—high ceilings, big windows. She smiles a little thinking that at least a bit of the inspiration for the choice probably came from living in Lou’s loft—their loft—for so many weeks. The clip ends abruptly when Constance mis-remembers where exactly she placed her new couch, topples over the top of it, and ends up tangled as a pretzel on the floor.

There’s a response from Amita and one from Nine-Ball.

 _“OMG, Contance, THIS is why Lou wouldn’t let you skateboard inside anymore. You’re going to ruin your floors.”  
__-_ sent 11:57am

 _“Girl.”  
__-_ sent 12:01pm

 

There's also a message from Lou waiting in her inbox from a few hours before. She saw it come in but hadn’t wanted to open it until she had a moment to savour.

It’s a picture of the sunrise in Big Sur, taken over the handlebars of Lou’s bike.

 _“Dreamin' 'bout you is keepin' me up at night,_  
_and these stayin'-put-shoes I'm wearin' don't fit me right._  
_I think I'm losin' myself, it's a slow bleed._  
_I've been missing you, Are you missing me?”_  
-read 12:06pm

The country music lyrics aren’t entirely what she was expecting, but she also isn’t really surprised by Lou’s eclectic taste.

 _“You know I am.”  
_ -sent 12:08pm

 

Debbie pulls the collar of the leather jacket she’s wearing a little closer and shoves her hands in the pockets to fiddle with the trinkets stashed inside. She isn’t entirely sure who the jacket originally belonged to anymore—a lifetime of _them_ had turned anything that might have been considered hers, or Lou’s, into _theirs_ years ago. If she closes her eyes and concentrates she can smell the remnants of Lou’s perfume from the last time she wore it, even over the breeze coming off the water.


	13. All the Pieces of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...remember that time I said this would probably be the last update?  
>  Well, I overestimated how much I could fit into a a single chapter while still keeping it cohesive... so here we are. This will not be the last update. There will be one more after this.  
> Besides, it would be bad luck to end on a chapter 13, especially this close to halloween. Wouldn't it?
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

Lou leans into the bend in the road coming up on San Luis Obispo, just before dusk.

  
The desert's long behind her, dust just about blown out of her leathers.  
Nothing but cliff and coastline from here.

This place is where she started—where she wound up running to when she left home without much more than a stolen and nearly maxed-out credit card, her favourite combat boots, and raw determination. There wasn't much rhyme or reason for ending up _here_ instead of somewhere _else_. Her plane landed in San Francisco and this was where her hitch-hiked ride dropped her off before turning back in-land.

At the time she wasn't sure whether she'd stay forever or move on, just knew she wasn't ready to leave the ocean behind her yet. It was a different skyline, opposite side of the water from Australia, but the same _blue_ she'd known all her life.

She spent six months here, back then. Learned to surf; slept on the beach on nights she couldn't con a motel room or crash on a couch; tended bar at a hole-in-the-wall that was willing to turn a blind eye to the date of birth on her ID; pick-pocketed her way to a second plane ticket, that one to New York City. 

She’d whisper stories of nights lying on the sand, under the stars, chasing down herself, to Debbie on nights before cons when her partner was too restless to sleep, but too exhausted to do anything more than lie in Lou's arms. The story of how she lifted the silver wolf-head ring she still wears almost every day from a traveler was always Debbie's favourite—something about the vision of Lou enchanting an enchantress had her floating up through the smoke from the scented candles they burned in their crappy apartment to cover the smell of musty carpet. Lou always swore she'd make it back one day—swore to Debbie that she'd take her and show her all the pieces of herself she’d found.

There's a pull in her chest thinking about her lover. She misses her, maybe more here, now, beside the ocean than she did burning through  _flyover states_ ; is secure enough in  _them_  to admit it. Has been collecting trinkets and souvenirs at each place she's stopped along the way for Debbie to hold while she hears about each town, every view, every cliff—wants Deb to have a tangible piece of these new memories, too.

It was her who wouldn't let Lou think of postponing her trip.

 _"I can go later."_  
_"This was always your finale, Lou. In every version of this dream that we ever came up with."_  
_"You'll meet me? After you and Tammy get the accounts settled?"  
_ _"I'll see you in L.A."_

There have been points along the way that Lou's had to remind herself not to speed straight through to Los Angeles, remember that she's been waiting for all of  _these_  moments for more than half her life. She reminds herself that Debbie will be waiting on a treasure trove of bedtime stories whispered to her the next time ghosts keep her from sleep. She eases up on the throttle, weaves through side-streets and back-alleys that she used to know like the back of her hand, takes note of the new mural that decorates the side of a brown brick building, and that the lampposts lining the sidewalk have been updated since she was here last. 

She comes to a stop beside the beach, tugs her helmet over her head, steps off her bike, looks out towards the water, and feels a spark go through her system—burning through her like it's real, floating just out of reach like a dream. 

She doesn't quite let herself believe it until it's within her grasp.

 

***

 

"You didn't drive that bike like you stole it for once? I half expected you an hour ago."  
"You're early."  
"I figured if I wasn't welcome you would have turned  _location services_  off on your phone—which you should really be doing, baby. We're felons."

Lou runs her palms over the supple leather shaped into Debbie's waist, breathes in the smell of her perfume combined with the ocean breeze, wraps her arms around her from behind—right arm circling her waist, left across the front of her shoulders.

"How was the desert?"  
"Mm, brought you a cactus."  
"You know I kill plants."  
"And you know I'll take care of it for you."

Lou nuzzles into the curve of her neck when Debbie’s fingers start to gently trail back and forth along the arm across her chest.

"Missed you." They aren't sure who says it out loud--maybe both, possibly neither. It doesn't matter. They both feel it— _this_ , and  _now_ , and  _here_.

Debbie's fingers stop their ministrations and Lou feels her shift, wraps her up a little tighter, hasn't made up for the last two weeks of not being close to her just yet. 

"Baby," There's a smile in Debbie's voice as she nudges Lou's temple with her nose. "I think you want to see this." 

She presses a wet, lingering kiss to the underside of Debbie’s jaw and lifts her head. Then she's tightening her hold even more and blinking three-four-five times in rapid succession.

“Debs?”  
“I thought about going more traditional, but this seemed more _you_.” 

Lou’s still staring straight ahead to where Debbie is holding up a black diamond, haloed in clear stones, set in platinum, to sparkle in the beginnings of the sunset glow.

“You’ve been with me every step of the way, _every_ time, _every_ way. Marry me, Lou.”

Lou just nods her head softly, doesn't say anything and Debbie doesn't need her to. Hasn't needed her to say anything to know what she's thinking in a long time. Lou moves her arm from across Debbie’s shoulders, holds up her hand for the ring to slide onto the only finger she’s never decorated. She sees Debbie’s reflection in the black stone, smiling the smile that crinkles her nose that Lou hasn’t seen in forever, spins her around by the waist to capture her lips, tastes the smile and the mint gum she must have been chewing earlier, and something else so uniquely _Deb_ that she can’t put a finger on.

Debbie loops one arm around Lou’s waist, draws her as close as she can, lifts her other hand to trace that sharp jaw-line, finger the feathered ends of her hair, fiddle with the epaulette-snaps on the shoulder of her jacket. Then, she draws back—first her lips, then her arm, then there’s a pace between them, two, and she’s leading Lou by the hand, stepping backwards, towards her bike.

“Show me the city—the lights, and walkways, and shadows. I want all of the pieces of you.”

 

***

 

Once their phones start dinging, they don't stop. A photo from Nine-Ball, definitely hacked from a security camera on the beach light post, grainy but undeniably of the two of them with a ring held up between Debbie's fingers, starts the flood of messages.

 _I'd best be designing your suit, Louise Miller. You are not getting married in leather._  
-read 8:45

 _Knew it. Pay up, Constance!_  
-read 8:46  
_You bet that one of them would pop the question in L.A. This doesn't count._  
-read 8:47  
_That's what you think!_  
-read 8:48

 _Wait, you got a ring from someone that wasn't me???_  
-read 8:51

 _Oh snap..._  
-read 8:52

 

*

 

"Not Amita?"  
"Remember that little jeweller hidden around the corner of 68th? The little bespoke place."  
"That's been gone for years. You would have had to have bought it before..."

Debbie brushes Lou's bangs away from her eyes.

"I bought it with my cut from the last painting we sold before I posed as the seller."  
"But it wasn't—back then—we couldn't have—"  
"I didn't care. I wanted you to know you belonged to somebody. Whether we could make it official or not."

 

***

 

Sitting sideways, leaning back into Lou in the corner of a booth at the back of the bar Lou cut her teeth working, Debbie downs the last of her vodka and sets the glass on the table with a clink. Lou's been running her fingertips up and down Debbie's side for the last half hour, brushing the side of her breast and then grazing the curve of her hip each time, whispering secrets about the place in her ear, running the tip of her tongue along her jaw, over the spot that makes her breath catch a little every time, biting just a little. 

Debbie thinks she could come apart just like that if Lou would just graze her teeth a little more solidly down her throat. 

"You want another?" Lou gestures to Debbie's empty glass. Debbie shakes her head.

"You want to get out of here?"   
"Yes."

 

 


	14. Stories of Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But more than gasping-out her name, it’s Debbie grasping to have Lou close to her, staying close to her, pulling Lou closer while she comes back down and then not letting go.
> 
> ...
> 
> Lou breathes into the stillness in time with her and remember how easy doing that has been since that first night she and Debbie found each other."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has all culminated into an "ending" that I think I'm really happy with.
> 
> Thank you to every person who has left kudos, and comments--it means the world.
> 
> Thank you to people who have read along and not made yourself known, too--21,000 words is an investment, that you've made it in this means a lot.
> 
> It's been a ride--hopefully you've had as much fun as I have.  
> Enjoy!

Ten paces out of the bar and down the street, Debbie looks at Lou from under her eyelashes, biting her lip. Another five paces has her pulling Lou into the alleyway between a closed coffee shop and a for-lease storefront, backing herself against the wall, pulling Lou _against_ her, sealing their mouths together.

It only takes Lou a moment to catch up, pressing her body into Debbie, Debbie into the concrete, sliding a thigh between her legs, bracing herself with an arm planted beside Debbie's head. 

Heat starts where Debbie's lips are fused with Lou's, spreads down to her belly, and down again to settle where Lou's thigh presses into her. The whimper slips out before she can even try to reign it in when Lou applies a little extra pressure.

Lou pulls back, runs her tongue along the shell of Debbie's ear. Debbie inhales through her nose, not trusting herself to open her mouth without Lou's over it to swallow back whatever confessions and sounds falls out.

"Can you be quiet for me, sweetheart?" the whisper is heavy in her ear.  
"Please, Lou," Debbie drops her head into the crook of Lou's neck, latches onto the soft skin there when cool fingers find their way under her blouse, skim across the flat of her stomach, up to palm a breast, down to skillfully pop the button of her jeans. 

 

*

 

Later, spread out over hotel sheets that aren't nearly as soft as the palms of Lou’s hands ghosting over her skin, slipping into her secret places, she falls over the edge twice more. Once on Lou's tongue, and then on Lou's fingers after she crawls up Debbie's body and wants to push her just a bit further, wants to hold her eyes when the waves crash through her.

“This might just be my favourite version of you, Deborah Ocean—whispering my name as a benediction.”

But more than gasping-out her name, it’s Debbie grasping to have Lou  _close_  to her, staying  _close_ to her, pulling Lou  _closer_  while she comes back down and then not letting go. Sliding _in_ to Lou. Pouring everything that Lou’s just poured into her back out because she knows that there isn’t a breath out without a breath in, and there isn’t push without pull, and there isn’t _Debbie_ without Lou. There’s just the bits and pieces of her that her often-absent father, long-gone mother, and disappeared-brother left when they went on their way. She thinks that _this_ version of herself—with _Lou_ seeping into her veins—might be her favourite, too.

 

***

“I know you met Rusty.”  
“Should have figured he’d call you.”  
“You don’t have to, Lou.”  
“Not an option, darling.”

It takes Debbie almost 200 miles on the back of Lou’s bike, thighs bracketing hips, to get the words out. Lou can tell she isn’t finished, standing against the railing on Santa Monica Pier, Lou’s engagement ring glittering in the sun when she turns to face Debbie, leaning sideways against wooden guards.

“Why him instead of Nine-Ball?”  
“Rusty knows what losing a partner feels like.”  
“So, he should know that I _can’t_ lose you.”  
“I’m right here, sweetheart.”

Lou reaches out, runs a hand down Debbie’s arm, laces their fingers when she reaches her hand, pulls her until they’re standing chest to chest.

“I couldn’t do it again, Lou.”

She brushes a kiss to Debbie’s forehead.”

“Let me take care of you this time.”

She gets it. If the shoe was on the other foot, would probably be saying the exact same things that Debbie is, but Lou also knows how to have this job done, and done properly. There’s more than enough degrees of separation that she couldn’t even be implicated if Rusty’s contacts messed up and it all went to hell. The marks carved into Debbie’s skin will be paid for, retribution sealed from _Louise_. They won’t ever know who she is, but they’ll remember the way her name sounds in hushed rumours.

 

***

 

Lou’s tangled in Egyptian cotton hotel sheets when she wakes up alone. It’s probably the lack of Debbie’s body curled into hers that brought her back to the waking world. Feels the soft breeze coming off the ocean, through the French doors they left open. It doesn’t take her long to find Debbie curled up in the corner of the couch on the patio off the bedroom that overlooks San Diego.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

Lou doesn’t say anything. Sits down sideways on the other end of the couch, leaning back against the arm, waits for Debbie to move into her. Settles with one leg stretched out along the length of the couch, the other bent at the knee, toes just reaching the ground, Debbie lying on her side against Lou’s chest, looking out at the Pacific.

She knows bits and pieces of the things that rip Debbie out of sleep, now. Doesn’t push, or ask for more details than Debbie offers up because she’s _talking_ without Lou having to pry, and Lou knows she’s doing the best she can while she processes it all, bit by bit. So she doesn’t ask; she brings her lips close to Debbie’s ear and begins to speak in soft, low tones.

“I didn’t learn to surf when I was a kid,” she starts, wrapping her arms around Debbie. “Which was weird, because _Australia_ , but I was just always afraid of not _always_ being ready to run. Just in case.” Debbie brings a hand to rest on Lou’s arm where it crosses her chest. “So I wound up on the coast of California, serving drinks to surfers after they spent all day in the water, watching them from the sidelines on my days off, with no idea how to not make of a fool of myself if I bothered to try.” She kisses Debbie’s hair. “Some kid asked me what the biggest wave I’d ridden was at the bar one night. He heard my accent and recognized me from the beach and made assumptions. Said he’d teach me when he figured out the truth. All I had to do was meet him on the beach the next morning. I didn’t show. I was still scared of almost everything—which was less than I was scared of before leaving home, but I still didn’t show.”

Debbie stays still, listening to Lou. She’s heard this story in less detail before—has heard most of Lou’s stories in some form or another. This one makes her wish she’d met Lou sooner, loved her longer, but she wouldn’t really change a thing because that would mean changing some part of _them_ and she can’t fathom that. So, she listens to the story pour out into the salty air.

“He caught up with me—hard to avoid people in a coastal town. Took him another three tries to get me into the water. He taught me to surf. Genuinely didn't want anything from me other than being allowed to laugh when I wiped out and got mouthfuls of salt water. Taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid of everyone anymore—didn’t know he taught me that, though."

“What was his name?”  
“Sam.”  
“What happened to him?”  
“I left for New York.”

Debbie understands. None of it is sad or happy, isn't laced with undertones of _what if_ , or implications, and most of all there's no unrequited on either side; can’t be boiled down to something rudimentary. It’s fond and gentle and more than anything else it's  _complete_ exactly as it is. Lou doesn’t need or want any addendums; she continues in the same low voice she’d started in. “I learned to surf and got far too sunburnt far too often, and as soon as I could afford it I bought a ticket to New York. Met you my fourth week there, and you know the rest.”

She knows Debbie isn’t asleep like she sometimes is by the end of the stories, but her breathing has gone from shallow, to deep and steady, and Lou breathes into the stillness in time with her and remembers how _easy_ doing that has been since that first night she and Debbie found each other.

 

***

 

 _They’re all in your kitchen—tell them I told you and I’ll never speak to you again.  
_ -read 6:49pm

The heads-up coming from Tammy most likely means that Tammy has also been roped into whatever is going on inside the loft. Lou coasts around the side of the building, instead of the front, and kills the engine quietly. Debbie climbs off behind her, Lou stands and swings her leg over, but turns and perches sideways on the seat, pulling Debbie back to stand between her legs.

“Twenty dollars says they don’t figure out we tied the knot before coming back by the end of the night.”  
“What do you get if you win?”  
“I’ll do that thing you like.”  
“The thing _I_ like?”  
“I like _doing_ it to you.”

Lou grips Debbie’s waist and catches her lips in a kiss, growls in the back of her throat when Debbie’s fingers wind in her hair and tug lightly.

“If I win, I want you to do that thing I like, wearing those thigh-high boots I love.”  
“The boots?”  
“And nothing else.” 

The next kiss is a breath stolen out of Debbie’s lungs, replaced by Lou’s tongue, by her taste, by the electric shocks coming from everywhere Lou’s touching her and going straight to her heart, to her head, making it hard to think about anything other than Lou’s lips, and Lou’s skin, and needing _Lou_ all over her, all over again. They break apart for air, Debbie resting her forehead against Lou’s.

“Debs?”  
“Mm?”  
“I think I’ve loved you forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Questions? Trivia facts or life lessons?  
> Comments feed the muse <3


End file.
